THE    WHITE    CROSS   LIBRARY. 


BY 


PRENTICE    MULFORD. 


VOL.  I, 


NEW  YORK  CITY: 

F.    J.    NEEDHAM, 

1911 


COPYRIGHT,  1887  and  ign, 
Bv  F.  J.  NEEDHAM. 


Stack 

•me* 

35Z 


CONTENTS. 


1fOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP. 

WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP. 

THE  ART  OF  FORGETTING. 

HOW  THOUGHTS  ARE  BORN. 

THE  LAW  OF  SUCCESS. 

HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH. 

CONSIDER  THE  LILIES. 

ART  OF  STUDY. 

PROFIT  AND  LOSS  IN  ASSOCIATES. 

THE  SLAVERY  OF  FEAR. 

WHAT  ARE  SPIRITUAL  GIFTS. 

THE  PROCESS  OF  RE-EMBODIMENT. 

RE-EMBODIMENT  UNIVERSAL  IN  NATURE. 


GOD. 


A  Supreme  Power  and  Wisdom  governs  the" 
Universe.  The  Supreme  Mind  is  measureless,  and 
pervades  endless  space.  The  Supreme  Wisdom, 
Power  and  Intelligence  is  in  everything  that  exists 
from  the  atom  to  the  planet. 

The  Supreme  Power  and  Wisdom  is  more  than 
in  everything.  The  Supreme  Mind  is  everything. 
The  Supreme  Mind  is  every  atom  of  the  mountain, 
the  sea,  the  tree,  the  bird,  the  animal,  the  man,  the 
woman.  The  Supreme  Wisdom  cannot  be  under- 
stood by  man  or  by  beings  superior  to  man.  But 
man  will  gladly  receive  the  Supreme  thought  and 
wisdom,  and  let  it  work  for  happiness  through  him,, 
caring  not  to  fathom  its  mystery. 

The  Supreme  Power  has  us  in  its  charge,  as  it 
has  the  suns  and  endless  systems  of  worlds  in  space. 
As  we  grow  more  to  recognize  this  sublime  and 
exhaustless  wisdom,  we  shall  learn  more  and  more 
to  demand  that  wisdom  draw  it  to  ourselves,  make 
it  a  part  of  ourselves,  and  thereby  be  ever  making 
ourselves  newer  and  newer.  This  means  ever  per- 
fecting health,  greater  and  greater  power  to  enjo> 
all  that  exists,  gradual  transition  into  a  higher 


state  of  being  and  the  development  of  powers  we 
do  not  now  realize  as  belonging  to  us. 

We  are  the  limited  yet  ever  growing  parts  and 
-expressions  of  the  Supreme  Never  Ending  Whole. 
It  is  the  destiny  of  all  in  time  to  see  their  relation 
to  the  Supreme  and  also  to  see  that  the  straight 
and  narrow  path  to  ever-increasing  happiness  is  a 
perfect  trust  and  dependence  on  the  Supreme  for 
the  all  round  symmetrical  wisdom  and  idea  which 
we  individually  cannot  originate.  Let  us  then  daily 
demand  faith,  for  faith  is  power  to  believe  and 
power  to  see  that  all  things  are  parts  of  the  Infin- 
ite Spirit  of  God,  that  all  things  have  good  or  God 
in  them,  and  that  all  things  when  recognized  by  us 
as  parts  of  God  must  work  for  our  good. 


You  travel  when  your  body  is  in  the  state  called 
sleep.  The  real  "you"  is  not  your  body;  it  is  an 
unseen  organization,  your  spirit.  It  has  senses  like 
those  of  the  body,  but  far  superior.  It  can  see  forms 
and  hear  voices  miles  away  from  the  body.  Your 
spirit  is  not  in  your  body.  It  never  was  wholly  in 
it ;  it  acts  on  it  and  uses  it  as  an  instrument.  It  is 
a  power  which  can  make  itself  felt  miles  from  your 
body. 

One-half  of  our  life  is  a  blank  to  us ;  that  is,  the 
life  of  our  spirit  when  it  leaves  the  body  at  night. 
It  goes  then  to  countries  far  distant,  and  sees  people 
we  never  know  in  the  flesh. 

Sleep  is  a  process,  unconsciously  performed,  of 
self-mesmerism.  As  the  mesmeric  operator  wills 
another  into  unconsciousness,  so  do  you  nightly 
will  yourself,  or  rather  your  body,  into  a  state  of 
insensibility. 

What  the  mesmeric  operator  really  does  is  to 
draw  the  spirit  out  of  the  body  of  the  person  he 
mesmerizes.  He  brings  the  thought  of  his  subject 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


£  YOU  TRAVEL   WHEN  YOU   SLEEP. 

to  some  focus  or  centre,  as  a  coin  held  in  the  hand. 
While  thus  centred,  the  thought  (or  spirit)  of  the 
subject  is  put  in  such  a  condition  that  he  can  most 
easily  affect  it  by  his  will.  He  wills  then  the  per- 
son's spirit  out  of  his  body.  This  done,  he  throws 
his  own  thought  in  that  body.  It  is  then  as  a  house 
left  open  by  its  owner.  The  mesmerizer  then  takes 
possession  of  that  body  by  the  power  of  his  own 
thought.  It  is  not  the  subject  at  all  who  sees,  feels, 
and  tastes  as  the  operator  wills:  it  is  the  spirit  or 
thought  of  the  mesmerizer  himself,  exercised  in  an- 
other body,  temporarily  left  vacant  by  its  own  spirit. 

Thought  is  a  substance  as  much  as  air  or  any  other 
unseen  element  of  which  chemistry  makes  us  aware. 
It  is  of  many  and  varying  degrees  in  strength. 

Strong  thought  or  mind  is  the  same  as  strong  will. 
Some  persons  are  so  weak  in  thought,  as  compared 
with  the  practised  mesmerizer,  that  they  cannot 
resist  him.  Others  of  even  stronger  thought  can 
give  themselves  up  voluntarily  to  his  control.  You 
need  not  be  overpowered  by  any  one  in  this  way, 
providing  you  resist  them  in  mind,  and  call  upon  the 
higher  power  to  assist  you,  if  you  feel  their  thought 
overcoming  you. 

When  we  "  go  to  sleep,"  the  spirit  has  been  by  its 
day's  workings  sent  widely  scattered  away  from  the 
body ;  with  so  little  of  its  force  left  by  it,  the  body 
falls  into  the  trance  state  of  slumber.  As  the  mes- 
merizer draws  the  spirit  away  from  the  body  of  his 
subject,  so  has  our  spirit  drawn  itself  away  from  our 
bodies  by  its  many  efforts  during  the  day. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU  SLEEP.  3 

Your  body  is  not  your  real  self.  The  power  that 
moves  it  as  you  will  is  your  spirit.  That  is  an  in- 
visible organization,  quite  distinct  and  apart  from 
your  body.  Your  spirit  (your  real  self)  uses  }rour 
body  as  the  carpenter  does  his  hammer  or  any  tool 
to  work  with. 

It  is  the  spirit  that  is  tired  at  night.  It  is  ex- 
hausted of  its  force,  and  therefore  not  able  to  use  the 
body  vigorously.  The  body  is  really  then  as  strong 
as  ever,  as  the  carpenter's  hammer  has  the  same 
strength  when  his  arm  is  too  weak  to  use  it. 

The  spirit  is  weak  at  night,  because  its  forces  have 
in  thought  been  sent  in  so  many  different  directions 
during  the  day  that  it  cannot  call  them  together. 
Every  thought  is  one  of  these  forces,  and  a  part  of 
your  spirit.  Every  thought,  spoken  or  unspoken,  is 
a  thing,  a  substance,  as  real,  though  invisible,  as  water 
or  metal.  Every  thought,  though  unspoken,  is  some- 
thing which  goes  to  that  person,  thing,  or  locality  on 
which  it  is  placed.  Your  spirit,  then,  has  during  the 
day  been  so  sent  in  a  thousand,  perhaps  ten  thousand^ 
different  directions.  When  you  think,  you  work. 
Every  thought  represents  an  outlay  of  force.  So 
sending  out  force  for  sixteen  or  eighteen  hours,  there 
is  not  at  night  sufficient  left  in  or  near  the  body  to 
use  it.  The  body  therefore  falls  into  the  condition 
of  insensibility  we  call  sleep.  During  this  condition 
the  spirit  collects  its  scattered  forces,  its  thoughts 
which  have  been  sent  far  and  wide  ;  it  returns  with 
its  powers  so  concentrated  to  the  body,  and  again 
possesses  it  with  its  full  strength.  It  is  when  scat- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

tered  as  so  many  scattered  rills  of  water  trickling  in 
many  directions.  Put  all  these  together  in  a  single 
volume,  and  you  have  the  power  that  turns  the  mill- 
wheel. 

Could  you  call  all  of  your  spirit  at  once  to  its 
•centre,  and  so  collect  its  widely  scattered  forces,  you 
could  be  fresh  and  strong  in  as  many  minutes  as  it 
now  takes  hours  to  rest  you.  This  power  was  known 
to  the  first  '^Tapoleon,  and  sustained  him  for  days 
with  very  little~sleep  during  the  crisis  of  his  cam- 
paigns when  his  energies  were  taxed  to  the  utmost. 
It  is  a  power  which  can  be  acquired  by  all  through  a 
certain  training. 

It  is  done  by  first  placing  the  body  in  a  state  of  as 
complete  rest  as  possible;  stopping  all  involuntary 
physical  motions,  such  as  the  swinging  of  limbs,  tap- 
ping with  the  foot,  or  drumming  with  the  fingers. 
All  such  involuntary  movements  waste  your  force, 
and,  worse,  train  you  unconsciously  to  a  habit  hard 
to  break,  of  wasting  force.  The  involuntary  working 
of  the  mind,  the  straying  of  thought  in  every  direc- 
tion, —  towards  persons,  things,  plans,  and  projects,  — 
the  useless  frettings  over  cares  great  and  small,  must 
be  similarly_sjtoppej^_a^d_themind  for  a  few  minutes 
made  as  near  a  blank  as  possible.  Concentration  of 

^^^_ *  ,,/ 

thought  on  tTTe  word 'cc±tpdrawing,"  or  "  drawing  into 
self,"  or  the  mind-picture  of  your  spirit  with  its  fine 
electric  filaments  reaching  to  persons,  places,  and 
things  far  from  you,  being  all  drawn  back,  and 
massed  in  a  focus,  is  a  help  to  do  this;  because  whatso 
you  image  in  your  mind  is  a  spiritual  reality.  That 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU   SLEEP.  & 

is,  what  you  image,  you  are  actually  in  spirit  and  by 
spirit  doing.  Every  plan  or  invention  clearly  seen 
in  thought  is  of  thought-substance,  as  real  a  thing  as 
the  wood,  stone,  iron,  or  other  substance  in  which 
afterward  it  may  be  embodied  and  made  visible  to  the 
body's  eye,  and  made  to  work  results  on  the  physical  , 
stratum  of  life. 

If  a  man  thinks  murder,  he  actually  puts  out  an 
element  of  murder  in  the  air.  He  sends  from  him  a 
plan  of  murder  as  real  as  if  drawn  on  paper;  its 
thought  is  absorbed  by  others ;  so  is  this  element  and 
unseen  plan  of  murder  absorbed  by  other  minds :  it 
inclines  them  towards  violence  if  not  murder.  If  a 
person  is  ever  thinking  of  sickness,  he  sends  from 
him  the  element  of  sickness ;  if  he  thinks  of  health, 
strength,  and  cheerfulness,  he  sends  from  him  con- 
structions of  thought  affecting  others  to  health  and 
strength  as  well  as  himself.  A  man  sends  from  him 
in  thought  what  he  (his  spirit)  is  most  built  of.  "  As 
a  man  thinketh,  so  is  he."  Your  spirit  is  a  bundle  of 
thought;  whatjou  thipk"niQst_pf,  that  is  your  spirit? 
Imagine,  then,  yourself  as  such  a  being,  drawing  in 
all  these  filaments,  sent  and  placed  as  they  are  to  so 
many  things.  The  thoughts  so  passing  from  you  in 
one  minute  could  hardly  be  plainly  written  out  in  an 
hour.  You  gather  them  to  a  centre.  You  have  then 
gathered  in  and  concentrated  your  full  motive  power ; 
then  you  can  put  all  its  force  on  any  thing  you  please. 
When  the  eye  and  mind  are  put  on  any  single  object 
that  does  not  tax  the  energies,  say  a  spot  in  the  wall, 
the  positive  thought  or  filaments  reaching  out  are 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  YOU  TKAVEL  "WHEN  YOU   SLEEP. 

drawn  in  to  the  common  centre.  Your  absorption  on 
any  single  thing  loosens  them  from  their  near  or  far 
point  of  contact.  Before  such  loosening,  the  spirit 
is  as  the  expanded  hand  and  fingers.  When  the 
thought  is  drawn  in,  the  spirit  is  as  the  closed  or 
clinched  fist. 

When  thought  is  sent  out  to  any  thing,  you  send 
out  your  force.  When  it  is  centred  in  a  single  thing, 
and  so  drawn  in  and  kept  from  straying  every 
moment,  you  are  drawing  in  force. 

The  Hindoo  "adept"  becomes  able,  through  a  cer- 
tain training  of  mind,  to  send  his  spirit  or  himself 
from  his  body.  It  is  still  connected  with  it  by  the 
fine  unseen  current  of  life  known  in  the  Bible  as  the 
41  silver  thread."  When  that  thread  is  snapped,  body 
and  spirit  are  completely  severed,  and  the  body  dies. 
The  "  adept "  has  allowed  himself  to  be  buried  alive. 
Rice  has  been  sown  over  his  grave,  and  sprouted. 
Seals  were  put  in  his  coffin,  and  the  grave  carefully 
watched.  He  has  so  remained  for  weeks,  and  when 
dug  up  "  came  to  life." 

The  real  man  was  never  buried  at  all.  It  was  only 
his  body  in  the  self-induced  trance  state,  that  was 
buried.  Between  his  body  and  spirit,  possibly  miles 
away,  the  fine  thread  of  spirit  kept  up  the  body's  life, 
or  rather  such  supply  of  life  as  the  body  needed  to 
keep  it  from  decay.  When  the  body  was  dug  up,  his 
spirit  returned,  and  took  full  possession  of  it.  He 
was  able  to  do  with  his  own  body  what  the  mesmerizer 
does  with  the  body  of  his  subject.  He  sent  his  own 
spirit  out  of  it;  the  mesmerizer  sent  his  subject's 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU  TBAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.  7 

spirit  out.  Before  so  sending  out  his  spirit,  the  adept 
makes  his  mind  a  blank.  Before  drawing  out  the 
spirit  of  his  subject,  the  operator  causes  the  subject  to 
make  his  own  mind  a  blank ;  in  other  words,  he  stops 
the  resisting  forces  of  the  other  person's  thought  by 
turning  all  his  thought  to  a  centre. 

Your  spirit  can,  and  does  frequently,  go  from  your 
body  to  other  places  during  sleep.  It  is  then  still 
connected  with  it  by  this  thread  of  exceedingly  fine 
element.  This  can  be  drawn  out  to  a  great  distance. 
It  is  as  an  expanding  or  contracting  electric  wire  con- 
necting your  spirit  with  the  instrument  it  operates, 
your  body. 

This  power  of  the  spirit  so  to  leave  the  body  ac- 
counts for  the  phenomenon  of  persons  being  seen  in 
two  places  far  distant  at  the  same  time.  It  is  the 
spirit  that  is  seen  by  some  clairvoyant  eye.  It  is 
the  "  double,"  the  "  doppel  ganger  "  of  the  German, 
the  "wraith"  of  the  Scotch.  The  spirit  may  even 
be  far  from  the  body  just  previous  to  the  body's 
death.  It  is  only  the  feeble  supply  of  life  sent  it 
through  the  connecting  thread,  which  causes  the  in- 
voluntary throes  (so  called)  of  dissolution.  These 
are  not  as  painful  as  they  seem.  The  real  self,  the 
spirit,  even  then  may  be  unaware  of  the  "  death-bed 
scene."  It  may  go  to  some  person,  possibly  at  a 
distance,  to  whom  it  is  much  attracted ;  and  thereby 
is  solved  the  mystery  of  the  apparitions,  seen  by  dis- 
tant friends,  of  persons  whose  deaths  at  or  about  the 
time  of  such  appearances  were  not  heard  of  wutil 
months  after. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

Sometimes  people,  during  periods  of  sickness,  fall 
unconsciously  into  a  state  where  the  spirit  leaves  the 
body,  without  snapping  the  threads  of  life.  The 
body's  trance  has  then  been  mistaken  for  its  real 
death,  and  it  (the  body)  has  been  buried  alive.  The 
spirit  has  been  compelled  to  return  to  its  body  in  the 
coffin.  The  thread  could  only  be  severed  after  such 
return. 

Your  real  being  is  ever  sending  out,  with  each 
thought,  a  fine  electric  ray  or  filament,  representing 
so  much  of  your  life,  your  force,  your  vitality,  and 
reaching  to  the  object,  place,  or  person  to  which  such 
thought  is  sent,  be  it  six  feet  or  thousands  of  miles 
from  your  body. 

Your  thought  is  your  real  strength.  When  you 
lift  a  weight,  you  put  your  thought  on  the  muscle 
that  lifts.  The  heavier  the  weight,  the  more  of  your 
thought  do  you  put  on  it.  If,  in  so  lifting,  a  part  of 
your  thought  is  turned  in  some  other  direction,  if 
some  one  talks  to  you,  if  something  frightens  or  an- 
noys you,  a  part  of  your  strength  or  thought  leaves 
you.  It  goes  to  whatever  has  taken  away  a  part  of 
your  attention  from  lifting. 

It  is  mind,  thought,  spirit,  that  use  the  muscle  to 
lift,  as  we  use  a  rope  to  pull  up  a  weight.  There  is 
no  lifting  or  working  without  intelligence.  Intelli- 
gence, thought,  mind,  and  spirit  mean  about  the 
[^  same  thing. 

It  does  not  matter,  in  order  to  give  strength, 
whether  the  spirit,  when  once  called  together,  be  near 
the  body  or  at  a  distance  from  it.  So  that  it  brings 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU  TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.  9 

its  forces  (its  thoughts)  together,  be  it  far  from  its 
body  or  near  it,  it  is  strong ;  and  when  it  again  takes 
possession  of  your  body,  and  wakes  it  up,  it  is  able 
to  use  the  body  with  its  full  strength. 

But  the  spirit  may  remain  scattered  all  night.  It 
may  never  be  able  to  bring  its  forces  together  at  any- 
time. It  may  be  living,  as  many  now  are,  with  its 
thought  always  in  advance  of  the  act  it  is  now  doing- 
or  trying  to  do.  It  is  walking  the  body  and  sending 
out  its  force  (its  thought)  to  the  place  it  hurries  to. 
It  is  writing  with  the  body,  and  thinking  of  something- 
else.  When  it  frets,  it  sends  out  force  to  the  thing- 
fretted  about.  These  states  of  mind,  acts  of  thought,, 
and  useless  waste  of  force  become  at  last  so  con- 
firmed in  habit,  that  the  spirit  may  lose  all  power  of 
bringing  all  its  strength  together.  In  this  state  it 
gathers  no  strength  by  night  or  day. 

Sleeplessness  comes  of  the  difficulty  of  the  spirifc 
to  bring  itself  to  a  centre  and  collect  its  forces.  In- 
sanity comes  of  the  total  inability  of  the  spirit  to 
focus  its  thoughts.  The  permanent  cure  for  sleep- 
lessness must  commence  in  the  daytime.  You  must 
drill  your  mind  to  put  its  whole  thought  on  the  act 
you  are  now  doing.  If  you  tie  your  shoe,  think  shoe 
and  nothing  else.  Then  you  bring  yourself  to  &, 
centre,  and  collect  your  forces.  If  you  tie  your  shoe,, 
and  think  of  what  you  are  going  to  buy  the  next 
hour,  you  are  sending  needlessly  half  of  your  forces 
from  yourself.  You  are  in  reality  trying  to  do  two 
things  at  once.  You  do  neither  well.  You  are  scat- 
tering your  spirit  on  as  many  things  as  you  think  of 

/ 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  YOU  TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

while  tying  the  shoe.  You  are  cultivating  the  bad 
liabit  of  scattering  your  force,  until  such  habit  be- 
comes involuntary.  You  are  making  it  more  and 
more  difficult  for  your  spirit  to  collect  itself  together. 
By  so  doing,  you  make  it  more  difficult  for  the  spirit 
to  return  with  strength  to  its  body  in  the  morning, 
©r  to  leave  it  at  night.  You  can  get  no  healthy  sleep 
at  night  unless  your  spirit  does  withdraw  from  its 
body.  Sleeplessness  means  simply  that  your  spirit 
^cannot  leave  its  body. 

If  you  fall  into  the  dangerous  habit  of  fretting, 
your  spirit  may  fret  as  much  on  going  from  its  body 
•at  night  as  when  using  it  in  the  daytime.  Or,  if  you 
are  of  a  quarrelsome  disposition,  it  may  be  quarrel- 
ling, fighting,  and  hating  all  night,  and  so  return  to 
its  body  without  any  strength  to  use  it ;  because  all 
quarrelling,  if  only  in  thought,  is  constantly  using  up 
force. 

It  is  for  this  very  reason  dangerous  and  unhealthy 
to  let  the  "  sun  go  down  on  your  wrath ; "  that  is, 
to  have  in  mind,  just  before  the  body's  eyes  close  in 
sleep,  the  recollection  of  the  persons  you  dislike,  and 
1)e  then  engaged  in  sending  hating  thought  to  them. 
The  spirit  will  keep  up  the  process  after  it  leaves  the 
body.  To  hate  is  simply  to  expend  force  in  tearing 
yourself,  your_  spirit,  to  pieces.  lHatp  is  a  destructive 
force.  Good-will  to  all  is  constructive :  it  builds  you 
up  stronger  and  stronger.  Hate  tears  you  down. 
"Good-will  to  all  draws  to  you  healthy  and  construc- 
tive elements  from  all  with  whom  you  come  in  con- 
tact. Could  you  see  the  actual  elements  as  they  flow 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN  YOU   SLEEP.  11 

from  them  to  you,  in  their  liking  for  you,  you  would 
see  them  as  fine  rills  of  life  feeding  yours.  Could 
you  see  the  contrary  elements  of  hatred  which  you 
may  excite  in  others,  you  would  see  them  flowing 
toward  you  as  dark  rays  or  rills  of  dangerous,  poison- 
ous substance.  If  you  send  out  to  it  its  like,  the 
thought  of  hatred,  you  only  add  to  the  unhealthy 
force  and  power  of  that  element,  because  these  two 
opposed  and  dangerous  elements  meet  and  mingle, 
act  and  re-act  on  those  who  send  them,  ever  calling 
on  each  to  send  fresh  supply  of  force  to  keep  up  the 
war,  until  both  are  exhausted.  Self-interest  should 
prompt  people  to  hate  none.  It  weakens  the  body, 
and  causes  disease.  You  never  saw  a  healthy  cynic, 
growler,  or  grumbler.  Their  soured  thought  poisons 
them.  Their  bodily  disease  originates  in  their  minds. 
Their  spirits  are  sick.  That  makes  the  body  sick. 
All  disease  originates  in  this  way.  Cure  the  spirit, 
change  the  state  of  the  mind,  replace  the  desire  to 
make  others  feel  disagreeably  by  that  of  making  them 
feel  agreeably,  and  you  are  on  the  road  to  cure  dis- 
ease. When  the  spirit  originates  no  warring,  hating, 
gloomy,  despondent  thought,  no  manner  of  unpleasant 
thought,  the  body  will  take  no  disease  whatever. 

You  can  only  oppose  successfully  the  hatred  or 
evil  thought  of  others  by  throwing  out  toward  it  the 
thought  of  good- will.  Good-will  as  a  thought-el e-  ( 
ment  is  more  powerful  than  the  thought  of  hate.  It 
can  turn  it  aside.  The  "  shafts  of  malice,"  even  in 
thought,  are  real  things.  They  can  and  do  hurt 
people  on  whom  they  are  directed,  and  'make  them 


Thoughts  are  Things, 


12  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

sick.  The  Christ  precept,  "Do  good  to  them  that 
hate  you,"  is  based  on  a  scientific  law.  It  means 
that  thoughts  are  things,  and  that  the  thought  of 
good  can  always  overpower  that  of  evil.  By  power 
is  here  meant  power  in  as  literal  a  sense  as  in  speak- 
ing of  the  force  that  lifts  a  table  or  chair.  The  fact 
that  all  thought,  all  emotion,  all  of  what  is  called 
sentiment,  or  qualities  such  as  mercy,  patience,  love, 
etc.,  are  elements  as  real  as  any  we  see,  is  the  corner- 
stone to  the  scientific  basis  of  religion. 

What  you  call  dreams  are  realities.  Your  spirit 
away  from  your  body  at  night  goes  to  and  sees  per- 
sons and  places.  To  some  of  these  you  may  have 
never  gone  with  your  body.  You  remember  on  the 
body's  awakening  very  little  of  what  you  have  seen. 
What  you  do  remember  is  mixed  pell-mell  together. 
That  is  because  your  memory  of  the  body  can  hold 
but  a  little  of  what  is  grasped  by  the  memory  of 
your  spirit.  You  have  two  memories,  one  trained 
and  adapted  to  the  life  of  your  body,  the  other  of 
your  spirit.  Had  you  known  of  the  life  and  power 
of  your  spirit  from  infancy,  and  recognized  it  as  a 
reality,  the  memory  of  your  spirit  would  have  been 
so  trained  that  it  would  remember  all  of  its  own  life 
and  bring  it  back  to  you  on  the  awakening  of  the 
body.  But  as  you  have  been  taught  to  regard  even 
your  spirit  as  a  myth,  so  you  make  of  its  memory  a 
myth.  Were  a  human  being  taught  from  infancy  to 
discredit  the  evidence  of  any  of  its  senses,  then  that 
sense  would  be  blunted  and  almost  destroyed.  Let 
all  associated  with  a  child  for  years  deliberately  set 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.  13 

to  work  and  tell  it  that  they  could  not  see  the  sky  or 
houses,  fields,  or  other  familiar  objects  at  hand ;  and 
with  none  allowed  to  break  the  delusion,  that  child's 
eyesight  as  well  as  its  judgment  would  be  seriously 
affected.  We  are  similarly  taught  to  deny  all  the 
senses  and  powers  of  our  spirits ;  or,  rather,  the  real 
powers  of  ourselves,  of  which  the  senses  of  the  body 
are  a  faint  counterpart,  are  persistently  denied.  Sub- 
stantially we  are  taught  that  we  are  nothing  but 
bodies.  This  is  equivalent  to  telling  the  carpenter 
that  he  is  nothing  but  the  hammer  he  uses. 

If  in  a  so-called  dream  you  see  a  person  who  died 
years  ago,  you  see  simply  a  person  whose  body,  being 
worn  out,  could  no  longer  be  used  by  him  on  this 
stratum  of  life. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP. 


THERE  are  senses  of  your  body,  and  other  senser 
of  your  spirit.  Your  spirit  is  an  organization  distinct 
from  the  body.  It  has  eyes  and  ears,  touch,  taste,  and 
smell.  Its  eyes  can  see  ten  thousand  times  farther 
than  the  eye  of  the  body.  Its  other  senses  are  infi- 
nitely superior.  You  are  now  using  a  very  inferior 
set  of  senses.  The  eye  of  your  body,  compared  with 
the  eye  of  your  spirit,  is  a  mere  peep-hole.  The 
senses  of  the  body  are  relatively  coarse  as  compared 
with  those  of  the  spirit.  They  are  for  use  in  a  rela- 
tively coarser  stratum  of  life.  You  are  better  off  in. 
a  coal-mine  with  a  coarse  miner's  suit  than  with  one 
of  silk  or  velvet.  Your  body  with  its  coarser  senses- 
is  for  use  in  this,  the  coarser,  level  of  life.  Yet  it 
may  be  for  you  a  possibility  to  slip  off  this  suit  (the 
body),  and  go  with  your  spirit  (leaving  for  a  time  the 
coarse  suit  behind)  to  a  higher  and  finer  order  of  life. 

You  have  now  a  clairvoyant  eye  and  a  clairaudient 
ear.  But  these  are  not  opened.  The  clairvoyant  eye 
is  closed  like  those  of  some  animals  in  very  early 
infancy.  In  a  few  persons  it  is  opened  prematurely 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2          WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

and  in  advance  of  the  other  spiritual  senses.  This 
is  a  premature  ripening. 

The  clairvoyant  eye  is  the  spiritual  eye.  It  is  an 
•eye  put  out  at  the  end  of  a  thought.  Send  your 
thought  to  London,  and,  if  clairvoyant,  you  send  that 
«ye  with  it. 

A  clairaudient  ear  is  an  ear  sent  with  a  thought. 
Clairvoyance  and  clairaudience  are  not  special  gifts 
for  particular  people.  They  belong  to  all,  and  are  in 
the  germ  in  all. 

Your  spiritual  senses  have  been  so  crippled  from 
birth,  through  lack  of  exercise,  that  they  are  not  in 
•"  working  condition."  When  you  leave  your  body  at 
night,  you  are  as  a  person  in  a  dazed  or  bewildered 
state.  You  see  without  seeing.  You  hear  without 
bearing.  You  are  as  one  stunned  by  a  sudden  shock 
or  blow.  Then  the  spiritual  eye  may  see,  but  it  leaves 
no  distinct  memory  of  what  it  sees.  You  may  in  such 
state  have  a  remembrance  of  a  crowd  of  faces  about 
you  —  but  that  is  all.  In  a  condition  somewhat 
resembling  this  does  your  spirit  roam  about  on  slip- 
ping away  from  its  body.  You  are  as  an  infant  just 
let  out  of  doors.  You  go  where  a  vague  whim  or 
fancy  carries  you.  You  have  left  the  physical  senses 
•of  sight,  hearing,  and  touch,  in  the  body.  You  have 
now  only  a  set  of  totally  uneducated  senses  to  guide 
you.  You  have  been  taught  all  your  life  to  deny  the 
very  existence  of  these  senses.  To  teach  a  child  un- 
belief, say,  in  its  hearing  or  eyesight,  from  its  earliest 
consciousness,  will  result  in  injury  to  its  sight.  The 
educates  itself  gradually  to  use  the  senses  of  its 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHERE  YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.  3 

body  correctly.  An  infant  has  no  idea  of  distance. 
It  reaches  out  for  things  far  from  it,  imagining  they 
are  near  enough  to  be  touched.  It  will  walk  off  a 
precipice  if  left  to  itself.  It  learns  by  painful  expe- 
rience not  to  touch  hot  coals  or  hot  iron.  It  requires 
years  to  educate  it  to  a  proper  use  of  the  physical 
senses. 

Your  spirit  has  its  own  senses,  which  are  not  even 
recognized.  They  are  left  year  after  year  without 
any  exercise  or  training.  You  do  not  see,  in  what 
you  call  dreams,  with  the  physical  eye  at  all,  or  hear 
with  the  physical  ear.  You  see  with  the  spiritual 
eye ;  you  hear  with  the  spiritual  ear. 

You  are  literally  lost  on  going  to  sleep,  when  you 
go  into  your  spirit  life.  You  then  grope  about  like 
an  infant  with  its  untrained  physical  senses.  What 
idea  of  the  senses  you  do  have,  you  estimate  entirely 
by  those  of  your  body  which  you  have  left  behind. 
You  then  carry  your  real  selves  about  under  the  im- 
pression that  you  are  still  living  in  the  mask  you  wear 
in  the  daytime  (your  body),  and  estimating  and  judg- 
ing all  you  see  or  sense  by  a  set  of  inferior  senses 
(the  physical),  which  you  are  not  using  at  all. 

You  are  nightly,  on  passing  out  of  the  body,  really 
in  a  spirit  life ;  yet  you  are  dead  to  this  fact,  because 
you  are  using  the  spiritual  senses  as  you  use  the  phy- 
sical in  the  daytime.  You  are  as  one  using  a  crutch, 
when  you  have  two  sound  legs  which  need  only  prac- 
tice to  make  you  a  good  walker.  Many  people  who 
are  completely  severed  from  their  bodies  are  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  condition.  You  may  go  mostly  when 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4          WHERE   YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

away  from  the  body  among  these  people.  You  may 
be  attracted  to  them,  because  your  spirit  has  in  its 
uneducated  state  been  so  long  in  the  habit  of  blindly 
groping  among  them.  Your  spirit  has  fallen  into  this 
habit  just  as  it,  when  using  the  body,  falls  into  ruts 
of  habit,  which  are  often  extremely  difficult  to  break 
off.  You  see  men  daily  drifting  about  without  aim 
or  purpose,  waiting,  hoping  for  something  to  "  turn 
up  "  to  amuse  them.  A  man  without  aim  or  purpose 
in  life  soon  becomes  inferior  in  intellect.  Your  spir- 
itual self  is  in  the  same  condition,  from  a  similar 
cause.  It  is  often  surrounded  by  others  out  of  the 
body  without  aim  or  purpose,  and  who  know  not 
what  to  do  with  themselves. 

Fiction  has  never  devised  the  picture  literally  real- 
ized every  night  among  you.  These  thousands  on 
thousands  of  blind  beings  freed  temporarily  from  their 
bodies  are  straying,  wandering,  groping  everywhere 
—  in  your  houses,  your  streets,  your  fields  —  some 
near,  some  far  away.  They  are  neither  asleep  nor 
awake.  They  wander  as  if  in  a  dream  which  is  not 
a  dream.  Sometimes  the  spiritual  eye  opens,  and  they 
see  acquaintance  or  stranger,  scene  familiar  or  unfa- 
miliar. But  the  recognition  is  not  always  a  satisfac- 
tory one.  You  have  been  unconsciously  taught  not 
to  believe  in  the  reality  of  what  you  see  in  this  state. 
Therefore  you  do  not  accept  it  as  a  reality,  and  what 
the  mind  in  any  condition  persistently  refuses  to 
accept  as  a  reality  will  not  frame  itself  to  be  held  by 
memory  as  one. 

It  is  a  fact  that  some  people  on  the  death  of  the 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP.          5 

body  still  think  they  have  their  physical  bodies. 
They  may  remain  in  this  state  for  years.  They  go 
about,  eat,  sleep  and  live  in  every  way  in  that  grade 
of  existence  which,  though  unseen  by  us,  is  all  about 
us.  Because  every  thing  we  see,  hear,  touch,  handle, 
smell  or  taste  has  on  its  grade  its  correspondent  or 
spiritual  counterpart,  and  can  be  used  exactly  as  it  is 
here.  There  are  no  sudden  transitions  of  any  sort 
in  Nature.  People  on  passing  from  the  physical  body 
do  not  enter  on  any  glorified  condition  of  existence, 
unless  they  IN  MIND  are  living  such  existence  on  earth. 
They  go  where  every  thing  is  in  strict  correspondence 
with  their  daily  thought.  Friends  in  the  unseen 
world  may  on  their  first  arrival  receive  them  as  guests 
in  their  houses.  But  they  are  only  guests,  and  cannot 
remain  in  those  circles  unless  in  spirit  they  belong  to 
them.  If  their  thought  be  lower,  they  must,  after  a 
time,  return  to  the  order  or  stratum  of  thought  in 
which  they  lived  on  passing  out  of  the  body.  They 
cannot  commence  building  upward  on  that.  You 
MUST  build  your  "mansion  in  the  skies"  yourself. 
You  can  commence  consciously  building  it  here  in  the 
body  to  greater  advantage  than  to  commence  after 
you  lose  your  body.  That  you  must  build  it  your- 
self is  the  law  of  nature.  It  is  not  because  any 
individuality,  however  wise  and  powerful  in  any  of 
the  advanced  stages  of  existence,  says  you  must.  Ail 
of  these,  up  to  orders  of  mind  beyond  our  power  to 
comprehend,  have  been  and  are  now  the  builders  of 
their  temples  (themselves).  What  most  they  want 
of  us  is  to  build  in  like  manner  our  own  and  with  the 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


6          WHERE   YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

same  blissful  results.  Because  such  building  is  sim- 
ply the  building  of  our  own  individual  happiness 
into  grander,  broader  and  ever-broadening  propor- 
tions. 

Your  first  error  on  passing  from  the  body  in  the 
state  known  as  sleep  lies  in  thinking  that  you  are 
moving  about  your  physical  body.  You  must  educate 
yourself  out  of  that  mistake.  You  must  fix  it  in  your 
mind  before  going  to  sleep  that  if  you  wake  up  in 
what  you  call  a  dream  you  are  not  then  using  your 
physical  body.  You  will  fix  in  your  mind  before 
going  to  sleep,  so  far  as  you  can,  your  conception  of 
yourself  as  a  spirit  —  or,  rather,  as  the  unseen  organ- 
ization which  during  the  day  uses  your  body. 

The  last  thought  before  going  to  sleep  is  the  one 
most  likely  to  remain  with  you  on  leaving  the  body. 
If  persisted  in,  you  will  find  it  mingling  itself  with 
•what  you  call  your  dreams.  That  is,  it  will  be  the 
first  clew  towards  the  recognition  of  your  real  self 
when  you  are  away  from  your  body. 

Keep  this  fact  then,  this  recognition  of  yourself  as 
a  spirit,  in  your  mind,  and  it  will  be  a  great  help  to 
your  unseen  friends  in  the  other  life  to  get  near  you 
-and  waken  you  to  the  knowledge  of  your  real  self. 

The  wiser  and  more  powerful  order  of  spirits,  who 
may  be  able  to  give  you  much  of  their  thought  in 
the  daytime,  or  while  you  are  using  the  body,  may 
not  be  able  to  give  you  so  much  of  it  during  your 
escape  from  the  body,  owing  to  the  condition  above 
spoken  of.  Instead,  therefore,  of  going  into  a  higher 
region  of  thought  at  night,  you  descend,  through 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHERE    YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.  7 

blindness  and  mere  force  of  habit,  into  a  lower  one. 
You  may  be,  while  using  the  body,  educated  up  to 
and  enter  into  their  higher  realm  of  thought  by  day. 
Yet  at  night,  being  so  educated  in  part  in  the  school 
of  physical  sense,  you  cannot  carry  that  education 
with  you.  You  walk  with  the  spiritual  eye  and  ear, 
thinking  these  the  physical  eye  and  ear.  All  this 
results  in  a  confusion  which  no  language  can  fully 
express,  because  no  similar  condition  in  this  life  can 
be  clearly  realized  or  illustrated. 

You  want  to  give  your  powerful  unseen  friends  a 
clew  by  which,  on  passing  from  the  body,  they  can 
come  nearer  to  you  and  help  you  to  wake  up,  find 
your  real  self,  and  go  where  you  belong.  The  thought 
of  yourself  as  a  spirit,  as  a  being  distinct  and  apart 
from  your  body,  will  serve  as  this  clew.  A  thought 
is  as  real  a  thing  as  a  telegraph-wire.  It  will  be  the 
telegraph-wire  'twixt  you  and  them,  because  they  will 
not  stay  permanently  with  you  in  your  gropings  on 
the  cruder  stratum  of  life.  They  could  if  they 
wished;  but  they  want  to  draw  you  up  to  their 
abodes,  —  their  country,  their  realm,  —  where  all  is 
more  beautiful  and  fairy-like  than  ever  pen  or  pic- 
ture realized  here ;  where,  in  part,  at  least,  you  may 
now  belong.  To  bring  back  of  this  the  remembrance 
to  the  daytime  while  your  spirit  uses  the  body,  would 
be  to  bring  the  celestial  life  to  earth.  It  would  be 
as  a  temptation  in  the  right  direction  to  leave  off 
the  coarser  pleasures  for  the  sake  of  realizing  and  liv- 
ing in  the  higher.  Because  all  self-denial  has  really 
but  this  one  purpose :  that  of  cutting  loose  from 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  WHERE   YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU   SLEEP. 

fleeting  pleasure  that  leaves  a  lasting  pain,  to  obtain 
a  far  greater  pleasure  that  leaves  no  pain  at  all. 

As  persistently  you  fix  on  going  to  sleep  this  idea 
in  your  mind,  that  you  are  no  longer  using  the  body's 
senses,  you  will  after  a  time,  in  what  you  have  called 
the  dream,  find  yourself  recalling  this  fact.  You  will 
find  yourself  saying,  "  This  is  as  real  as  my  body  or 
day  life.  I  am  only  in  a  different  state  of  existence." 

Your  present  life  of  the  spirit,  away  from  the  body 
at  night,  is  very  often  one  that  exhausts  more  than  it 
refreshes.  Unconsciously  you  may  drift  toward  per- 
sons and  scenes  repulsive  to  you.  You  are  carried 
to  them  by  lower  currents  of  thought.  You  drift 
into  these  tides  as  an  ignorant  child  wades  into  the 
stream,  and  is  carried  beyond  its  depth  and  off  its 
foothold  by  an  outer  and  stronger  current ;  knowing 
nothing  of  the  fact  that  thought  does  move  in  cur- 
rents, and  that  the  lower  one  of  inferior  or  evil 
thought  is  most  powerful  near  the  earth,  —  nothing 
of  your  powers  and  senses  as  a  spirit,  you  are  as  help- 
less as  a  babe  nightly  on  passing  from  your  body. 

Could  you  get  a  start  in  the  right  direction  toward 
the  upper  and  superior  regions  of  thought,  —  could 
you  ascend  through  the  current  of  dark  and  crude 
thought,  which  everywhere  surrounds  you,  —  you 
would  find  yourself  in  a  land  of  beauty,  sunshine, 
and  flowers ;  of  grand  scenery  and  fairy  landscape. 
You  would  associate  there  with  the  people  you  most 
wish  to  see,  and  to  whom  you  in  spirit  belong.  You 
would  repose  in  a  luxurious  languor,  yet  still  be  able 
to  note  scenes  of  indescribable  charm  by  the  eye. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHEKE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.          9 

You  would  be  conscious  of  life,  and  still  be  at  rest. 
You  would  drink  in  life  with  every  breath.  You 
would  return  with  this  life  to  your  body  in  the  morn- 
ing. Your  night  of  bliss  would  be  both  as  a  rest  in 
thought  and  a  healthy  stimulation  to  your  life  in  the 
body.  Your  spiritual  senses  would  open  in  this  ele- 
vated thought-atmosphere.  You  would  be  freed  from 
what  is  now  a  nightly  slavery.  Your  connection  with 
the  higher  regions  of  thought  would  become  perma- 
nent, and  you  could  attain  the  power  of  returning  to 
them  at  any  time  to  refresh  yourself  when  overcome 
by  the  cruder  thought  which  now  surrounds  you. 

Every  low  place  of  resort,  every  saloon  filled  with 
hangers-on  more  or  less  under  the  influence  of  stimu- 
lant, every  and  any  place,  no  matter  what  its  conven- 
tional character,  if  it  be  a  place  of  deceit,  of  trickery 
in  trade,  is  an  actual  spring  of  low  thought.  This 
thought  flows  from  it,  as  real,  though  unseen,  as 
water  from  a  spring.  In  any  great  city  all  these  are 
as  so  many  thousands  of  springs  of  filthy  thought-ele- 
ment, near  together.  It  is  not  a  live,  rapid  current. 
It  is  more  like  a  slowly  moving  bed  of  filthy  ooze,  in 
which  you  are  mired  and  slowly  borne  along.  Every 
tattling,  gossiping,  scandal-mongering  group  of  peo- 
ple is  an  additional  spring  of  such  thought.  So  is 
every  family  where  disorder,  sour  looks,  cross  words, 
and  peevishness  or  petulance  reign.  Good  society, 
as  well  as  that  called  inferior  in  the  social  scale, 
can  contribute  to  this  inferior  thought-current.  The 
purest  spirit  cannot  live  in  this  thought-current  with- 
out being  unfavorably  affected  by  it.  It  requires 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10        WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP. 

continual  outlay  of  force  to  resist  it.  You  become 
mixed  and  entangled  in  it,  blinded  by  its  obscurity, 
weighed  down  by  the  burthen  it  brings.  You  may 
have  noticed  how  much  of  inordinate  desire  you  are 
freed  from  on  getting  in  the  open  country  far  beyond 
the  city  limits.  Mountains  are  more  free  from  this 
thought.  It  is  an  element  which  conforms  to  the 
law  of  gravitation.  Low  thought  runs  to  the  lowest 
places,  as  does  any  thing  heavy,  crude,  and  coarse. 
Trade,  commerce,  and  manufacture  unfortunately 
demand  cities  to  be  built  on  low  levels,  either  at  the 
seaside  or  river-bank.  In  the  coming  higher  civiliza- 
tions, the  making  of  the  most  perfect  men  and  women, 
and  the  discovery  and  making  of  real  and  permanent 
pleasures,  will  be  the  chief  pursuit.  Cities  will  then 
be  built  on  hills  or  mountains,  so  that  all  the  cruder 
emanations,  seen  and  unseen,  shall  readily  drain  away. 
With  so  much  of  this  injurious  unseen  element 
about  you,  you  may  see  an  additional  necessity  for 
forming  groups  of  people  who  are  naturally  aspiring 
and  more  pure,  who  shall  frequently  come  together, 
and  by  conversation  and  silent  communion  generate 
a  current  of  purer  thought.  The  more  of  this  they 
make  through  such  co-operation,  the  more  power  is 
given  each  individual  of  the  group  to  keep  himself, 
whether  in  the  body  by  day  or  out  of  it  at  night, 
from  being  unfavorably  affected,  and  perhaps  over- 
whelmed, by  these  prevailing  destructive  tides.  You 
are  then  forming  a  chain  of  connection  with  the 
higher,  purer,  and  more  powerful  region  of  thought. 
The  more  you  earnestly  seek  to  form  such  connection, 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL  WHEN  YOU  SLEEP.       11 

the  stronger  will  be  the  chain.  You  do  not  realize 
the  strength  of  these  "powers  of  darkness  "  all  about 
you,  or  the  odds  against  you  in  trying  to  stem  this 
dark  tide  alone. 

The  thought  brought  to  and  made  by  a  very  few 
persons,  who  so  meet  in  concert,  and  who  are  so  alive 
to  its  benefits  as  to  love  to  meet,  is  of  a  value  you 
cannot  overestimate.  It  is  the  more  powerful  thought. 
It  is  in  part  the  thought  and,  with  the  thought,  the 
force  of  wise,  powerful,  and  beneficent  spirits  who 
will  be  attracted  to  your  group,  and  who  come  with 
every  desire  to  aid  you.  It  will  clear  your  brain, 
make  stronger  your  body,  drive  out  disease,  and  give 
you  new  ideas  and  plans  for  every  kind  of  legitimate 
business.  You  do  not  now  realize  how  much  you  are 
kept  from  success  and  on  a  lower  level  of  life  through 
unconsciously  absorbing  and  being  swayed  or  partly 
blinded  or  confused  by  the  low  thought-current  about 
you.  You  accept  conditions  in  life  as  a  necessity, 
which,  were  your  intellects  keener  and  sharper,  you 
could  avoid.  You  may  absorb  timidity  from  others. 
You  may  so  absorb  inertia  and  lack  of  energy.  Your 
periods  of  lack  of  confidence  and  indecision  may  be 
results  of  absorption  of  this  lower  element.  You 
may  not  know  how  blind  you  are,  and  what  a  dif- 
ferent man  or  woman  you  might  be  did  you  see 
more  clearly  what  could  injure  and  what  could 
benefit  you.  Your  generation  of  the  more  powerful 
thought,  through  meeting  in  a  concert  of  pure  mo- 
tive, inquiry  for  truth,  and  desire  to  benefit  others 
as  well  as  yourselves,  would  clear  your  intellect,  in- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


12       WHERE  YOU  TRAVEL   WHEN   YOU  SLEEP. 

.crease  your  energy,  lead  you  away  from  errors  and 
stumbling-blocks,  improve  your  health,  and  build 
you  up  into  a  force  which  would  bring  to  you  every 
material  good  thing.  It  is  the  way  for  "seeking 
first  the  kingdom  of  God,"  "when  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you."  They  are  added  because 
the  force  you  create  in  yourselves  through  these 
meetings  as  a  family  and  fraternity  will  be  as  an 
actual  strong  magnet,  attracting  all  things  which 
your  wisdom  says  will  benefit  you. 

The  "  New  World "  rediscovered  by  Columbus  is 
a  small  affair  as  compared  with  the  one  lying  at  our 
very  doors,  and  into  which  we  unconsciously  enter 
•every  night.  We  look  with  the  eye  of  the  body 
across  our  rooms,  our  streets,  our  fields,  saying  there 
is  nothing  between  us  and  the  walls,  the  house,  the 
forest,  or  the  mountain,  but  "  empty  air ; "  when  that 
•space  may  be  crowded  with  structures,  with  people, 
with  the  unseen  copies  of  all  we  see  about  us. 

The  visions  produced  by  the  use  of  opium  and 
hasheesh  are  realities.  They  allow  of  a  more  com- 
plete escape  of  the  spirit  from  the  body.  The  spirit 
receives  an  artificial  strength  through  the  elements 
taken  from  the  poppy  or  hemp.  Aided  by  this,  it 
can  travel  farther,  and  is  stimulated  to  go  out  of  its 
habitual  ruts  when  the  body  sleeps.  It  does  go  into 
higher  and  more  sublimated  regions,  and  sees  in  them 
glories  never  realized  on  earth.  But  it  is  in  this  way 
forced  into  elements  too  fine  for  it  (the  spirit)  to 
retain  and  bring  back  to  the  body.  It  cannot  hold 
them,  and  so  returns  to  the  body  with  no  strength. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHEKE   YOU   TRAVEL  WHEN   YOU   SLEEP.        13 

Hence  the  re-action  and  misery  of  the  opium  eater  or 
smoker,  when  the  effect  of  the  drug  is  off.  You 
would  soon  be  in  a  condition  somewhat  similar,  were 
the  higher  spirits  to  carry  you  (as  they  could)  to 
their  own  country,  before  you  had  spiritually  grown 
up  to  it.  The  elements  you  would  absorb  there 
would  be  too  fine  for  use  in  this  stratum  of  life.  Yet 
continued  aspiration  can  make  your  spirit  fit  to  re- 
ceive of  these  elements,  and  appropriate  them,  on  its 
return  to  earth.  Your  whole  organization  would  be 
finer  then  than  now.  You  would  be  an  inhabitant 
of  the  two  worlds,  the  physical  one  about  you,  and 
that  grade  or  stratum  of  the  spiritual  where  you 
naturally  belonged.  This  is  to  be  the  life  of  the 
future  on  this  planet.  This  is  the  "  New  Jerusalem  " 
let  down  to  earth. 

More  men  and  women  in  the  world's  history  have 
awakened  to  this  life,  and  lived  in  it,  while  using 
their  bodies,  than  is  generally  known.  Paul  speaks 
of  being  "  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven,  and  there 
seeing  unutterable  things."  Swedenborg  was  in  close 
relationship  with  this  world.  There  have  been  many 
others  during  the  ages ;  but  they  were  discreet  enough 
to  keep  their  knowledge  to  themselves,  knowing  their 
story  would  not  in  their  time  be  credited,  and  that  to 
tell  it  would  bring  on  themselves  unpleasant  results. 

The  time  for  such  secretiveness  is  now  over.  More 
minds  awakened  and  able,  at  least,  to  entertain 
these  truths,  are  now  on  earth  than  ever  before. 
These  are  re-embodied  spirits  who  have  entered  on 
another  earth  life,  with  a  partial  knowledge  of  these 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


14        WHERE   YOU   TRAVEL   WHEN  YOU  SLEEP. 

truths,  and  who  will  recognize  them  so  soon  as  they 
are  boldly  put  forth. 

The  age  for  materiality  to  crush  out  spiritual 
truths  has  passed.  The  age  wherein  spiritual  truth 
shall  assert  itself,  and  rule  materiality,  has  in  reality 
commenced.  It  matters  not  how  small  is  the  appar- 
ent nucleus  or  group  of  persons  alive  to  these  truths. 
A  pin-hole  can  reveal  a  vast  landscape.  The  point 
of  contact  where  the  rope  is  made  fast  to  the  ship, 
to  pull  her  off  the  shoal,  is  but  a  few  inches  wide, 
but  that  is  all  the  space  required  to  bring  the  force 
to  bear  on  the  vessel ;  and  so  the  relative  few  who 
now  can  receive  these  things  will  be  the  power  to 
raise  the  many  upward. 


Thoughts  are  Thing*. 


THE  ART  OF  FORGETTING. 


IN  the  chemistry  of  the  future,  thought  will  be 
recognized  as  substance  as  much  as  the  acids,  oxides, 
and  all  other  chemicals  of  to-day. 

There  is  no  chasm  betwixt  what  we  call  the 
material  and  spiritual.  Both  are  of  substance  or 
element.  They  blend  imperceptibly  into  each  other. 
In  reality  the  material  is  only  a  visible  form  of  the 
finer  elements  we  call  spiritual. 

Our  unseen  and  unspoken  thought  is  ever  flowing 
from  us  an  element  and  force,  as  real  as  the  stream 
of  water  we  can  see,  or  the  current  of  electricity  we 
cannot  see.  It  combines  with  the  thought  of  others, 
and  out  of  such  combinations  new  qualities  of  thought 
are  formed,  as  in  the  combination  of  chemicals  new 
substances  are  formed. 

If  you  send  from  you  in  thought  the  elements  of 
worry,  fret,  hatred,  or  grief,  you  are  putting  in 
action  forces  injurious  to  your  mind  and  body.  The 
power  to  forget  implies  the  power  of  driving  away 
the  unpleasant  and  hurtful  thought  or  element,  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  THE  ART   OP  FORGETTING. 

bringing  in  its  place  the  profitable  element,  to  build 
up  instead  of  tearing  us  down. 

The  character  of  thought  we  think  or  put  out 
affects  our  business  favorably  or  unfavorably.  It  in- 
fluences others  for  or  against  us.  It  is  an  element 
felt  pleasantly  or  unpleasantly  by  others,  inspiring 
them  with  confidence  or  distrust. 

The  prevailing  state  of  mind,  or  character  of 
thought,  shapes  the  body  and  features.  It  makes  us 
ugly  or  pleasing,  attractive  or  repulsive  to  others. 
Our  thought  shapes  our  gestures,  our  mannerism, 
our  walk.  The  least  movement  of  muscle  has  a 
mood  of  mind,  a  thought,  behind  it.  A  mind  always 
determined  has  always  a  determined  walk.  A  mind 
always  weak,  shifting,  vacillating,  and  uncertain, 
makes  a  shuffling,  shambling,  uncertain  gait.  The 
spirit  of  determination  braces  every  muscle.  It  is 
the  thought-element  of  determination  filling  every 

muscle. 

I — 

Look  at  the  discontented,  gloomy,  melancholy,  and 
ill-tempered  men  or  women,  and  you  see  in  their 
faces  proofs  of  the  action  of  this  silent  force  of  their 
unpleasant  thought,  cutting,  carving,  and  shaping 
them  to  their  present  expression.  Such  people  are 
never  in  good  health,  for  that  force  acts  on  them  as 
poison,  and  creates  some  form  of  disease.  A  per- 
sistent thought  of  determination  on  a  purpose,  espe- 
cially if  such  purpose  be  of  benefit  to  others  as  well 
as  ourselves,  will  fill  every  nerve  with  strength.  It 
,  is  a  wise  selfishness  that  works  to  benefit  others  along 
with  ourselves.  Because  in  spirit,  and  in  actual  ele- 


Tkoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART  OF   FORGETTING.  8- 

ment,  we  are  all  united.  We  are  forces  which  act 
and  re-act  on  each  other,  for  good  or  ill,  through  what 
ignorantly  we  call  "  empty  space."  There  are  unseen 
nerves  extending  from  man  to  man,  from  being  to 
being.  Every  form  of  life  is  in  this  sense  connected 
together.  We  are  all  "  members  of  one  body." 
An  evil  thought  or  act  is  a  pulsation  of  pain  thrill- 
ing through  myriads  of  organizations.  The  kindly 
thought  and  act  have  for  pleasure  the  same  effect. 
It  is,  then,  a  law  of  nature  and  of  science,  that  we 
cannot  do  a  real  good  to  another  without  doing  one 
also  to  ourselves. 

To  grieve  at  any  loss,  be  it  of  friend  or  property, 
weakens  mind  and  body.  It  is  no  help  to  the  friend 
grieved  for.  It  is  rather  an  injury ;  for  our  sad 
thought  must  reach  the  person,  even  if  passed  to 
another  condition  of  existence,  and  is  a  source  of 
pain  to  that  person. 

An  hour  of  grumbling,  fret,  or  fear,  whether 
spoken  or  silent,  uses  up  so  much  element  or  force 
in  making  us  less  endurable  to  others,  and  perhaps 
making  for  us  enemies.  Directly  or  indirectly,  it 
injures  our  business.  Sour  looks  and  words  drive 
away  good  customers.  Grumbling  or  hating  is  a 
use  of  actual  element  to  belabor  our  minds.  The 
force  we  may  so  expend  could  be  used  to  our  pleas- 
ure and  profit,  even  as  the  force  we  might  use  with 
a  club  to  beat  our  own  body  can  be  employed  to 
give  us  comfort  and  recreation. 

To  be  able,  then,  to  throw  off  (or  forget)  a  thought  1 
or  force  which  is  injuring  us,  is  a  most  important  1 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  THE  ART   OF  FORGETTING. 

means  for  gaming  strength  of  body  and  clearness 
of  mind.  Strength  of  body  and  clearness  of  mind 
bring  success  in  all  undertakings. 

It  brings  also  strength  of  spirit ;  and  the  forces  of 
our  spirits  act  on  others  whose  bodies  are  thousands 
of  miles  distant,  for  our  advantage  or  disadvantage. 
Because  there  is  a  force  belonging  to  all  of  us,  sepa- 
rate and  apart  from  that  of  the  body.  It  is  always 
in  action,  and  acting  on  others.  It  must  be  in  action 
at  every  moment,  whether  the  body  be  asleep  or 
awake.  Ignorantly,  unconsciously,  and  hence  un- 
wisely used,  it  plunges  us  into  mires  of  misery  and 
error.  Intelligently  and  wisely  used,  it  will  bring 
us  every  conceivable  good. 

That  force  is  our  thought.  Every  thought  of  ours 
is  of  vital  importance  to  health  and  real  success. 
All  so-called  success,  as  the  world  terms  it,  is  not 
real.  A  fortune  gained  at  the  cost  of  health  is  not 
a  real  success. 

Every  mind  trains  itself,  generally  unconsciously, 
to  its  peculiar  character  or  quality  of  thought. 
Whatever  that  training  is,  it  cannot  be  immediately 
changed.  We  may  have  trained  our  minds  uncon- 
sciously to  entertain  evil  or  troubled  thought.  We 
may  never  have  realized  that  brooding  over  disap- 
pointment, living  in  a  grief,  dreading  a  loss,  fretting 
for  fear  this  or  that  might  not  succeed  as  we  wish, 
was  building  up  a  destructive  force  which  has  bled 
away  our  strength,  created  disease,  unfitted  us  for 
business,  and  caused  us  loss  of  money  and  possibly 
loss  of  friends. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   ART   OF   FORGETTING.  5 

To  learn  to  forget  is  as  necessary  and  useful  as  to 
learn  to  remember.  We  think  of  many  things  every 
day  which  it  would  be  more  profitable  not  to  think 
of  at  all.  To  be  able  to  forget  is  to  be  able  to  drive 
away  the  unseen  force  (thought)  which  is  injuring 
us,  and  change  it  for  a  force  (or  order  of  thought) 
to  benefit  us. 

Demand  imperiously  and  persistently  any  quality 
of  character  in  which  you  may  be  lacking,  and  you 
attract  increase  of  such  quality.  Demand  more 
patience  or  decision  or  judgment  or  courage  or  hope- 
fulness or  exactness,  and  you  will  increase  in  such 
qualities.  These  qualities  are  real  elements.  They 
belong  to  the  subtler,  and  as  yet  unrecognized,  chem- 
istry of  nature. 

— i 

The  man  discouraged,  hopeless,  and  whining,  has   1 
unconsciously  demanded  discouragement  and  hope- 
lessness.     So  he  gets  it.     This  is.__iis^  unconscious  ^ 
mental  training  to  evil.    Mind  is  "magnetic,"  because 
it  attracts  to  itself  whatever  thoughlTit  fixes  itself 
upon,  or  whatever  it  opens  itself  to.     Allow  yourself 
to  fear,  and  you  will  fear  more  and  more.     Cease  to 
resist  the  tendency  to  fear,  make  no  effort  to  forget 
fear,  and  you  open  the  door,  and  invite  fear  in  ;  you 
then  demand  fear.     Set  your  mind  on  the  thought 
of  courage,  see  yourself  in  mind  or  imagination  as 
courageous,  and  you  will  become  more  courageous,  i 
You  demand  courage. 

There  is  no  limit  in  unseen  nature  to  the  supply 
of  these  spiritual  qualities.  In  the  words  "Ask,  and 
ye  shall  receive,"  the  Christ  implied  that  any  mind 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  THE  ART   OF  FORGETTING. 

could,  through  demanding,  draw  to  itself  all  that 
it  needed  of  any  quality.  Demand  wisely,  and  we 
draw  to  us  the  best. 

Every  second  of  wise  demand  brings  an  increase 
of  power.  Such  increase  is  never  lost  to  us.  This 
is  an  effort  for  lasting  gain  that  we  can  use  at  any 
time.  What  all  of  us  want  is  more  power  to  work 
results,  and  build  up  our  fortunes,  — power  to  make 
things  about  us  more  comfortable,  to  ourselves  and 
our  friends.  We  cannot  feed  others  if  we  have  no 
power  to  keep  starvation  from  ourselves.  Power  to 
do  this  is  a  different  thing  from  the  power  to  hold  in 
memory  other  people's  opinions,  or  a  collection  of  so- 
called  facts  gathered  from  books,  which  time  often 
proves  to  be  fictions.  Every  success  in  any  grade 
of  life  has  been  accomplished  through  spiritual  power, 
through  unseen  force  flowing  from  one  mind,  and 
working  on  other  minds  far  and  near,  as  real  as  the 
force  in  your  arm  lifts  a  stone. 

A  man  may  be  illiterate,  yet  send  from  his  mind 
a  force  affecting  and  influencing  many  others,  far 
and  near,  in  a  way  to  benefit  his  fortunes,  while  the 
scholarly  man  drudges  with  his  brain  on  a  pittance. 
The  illiterate  man's  is  the  greater  spiritual  power. 
Intellect  is  not  a  bag  to  hold  facts.  Intellect  is 
power  to  work  results.  Writing  books  is  but  a 
fragment  of  the  work  of  intellect.  The  greatest 
philosophers  have  planned  first,  and  acted  after- 
wards, as  did  Columbus,  Napoleon,  Fulton,  Morse, 
Edison,  and  others,  who  have  moved  the  world,  be- 
sides telling  the  world  how  it  should  be  moved. 

Thoughts  are  Tilings. 


THE   ART    OF    FORGETTING.  7 

Your  plan,  purpose,  or  design,  whether  relating  to 
a  business  or  an  invention,  is  a  real  construction  of 
unseen  thought-element.  Such  thought-structure  is 
also  a  magnet.  It  commences  to  draw  aiding  forces 
to  it  so  soon  as  made.  Persist  in  holding  to  your 
plan  or  purpose,  and  these  forces  come  nearer  and 
nearer,  become  stronger  and  stronger,  and  will  bring 
more  and  more  favorable  results. 

Abandon  your  purpose,  and  you  stop  further  ap- 
proach of  these  forces,  and  destroy  also  such  amount 
of  unseen  attracting  power  as  you  have  built  up. 
Success  in  any  business  depends  on  the  application 
of  this  law.  Persistent  resolve  on  any  purpose  is  a 
real  attractive  force  or  element,  drawing  constantly 
more  and  more  aids  for  carrying  out  that  resolve. 

When  your  body  is  in  the  state  called  sleep,  these 
forces  (your  thoughts)  are  still  active.  They  are 
then  working  on  other  minds.  If  your  last  thought 
before  sleep  is  that  of  worry,  or  anxiety,  or  hatred 
for  any  one,  it  will  work  for  you  only  ill  results. 
If  it  is  hopeful,  cheerful,  confident,  and  at  peace  with 
all  men,  it  is  then  the  stronger  force,  and  will  work 
for  you  good  results.  If  the  sun  goes  down  on  your 
wrath,  your  wrathful  thought  will  act  on  others, 
while  you  sleep,  and  bring  only  injury  in  return. 

Is  it  not  a  necessity,  then,  to  cultivate  the  power 
of  forgetting  what  we  wish,  so  that  our  current  of 
thought  attracting  ill,  while  our  body  rests,  shall  be 
changed  to  the  thought-current  attracting  good  ? 

To-day  thousands  on  thousands  never  think  of 
controlling  the  character  of  their  thought.  They 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  THE   ABT   OF  FORGETTING. 

allow  their  minds  to  drift.  They  never  say  of  a 
thought  that  is  troubling  them,  "I  won't  think  of 
it."  Unconsciously  then  they  demand  what  works 
them  ill,  and  their  bodies  are  made  sick  by  the 
kind  of  thought  which  they  allow  their  minds  to 
fasten  on. 

When  you  realize  the  injury  done  you  through 
any  kind  of  troubled  thought,  you  will  then  commence 
to  acquire  the  power  of  throwing  off  such  thought. 
When  in  mind  you  commence  to  resist  any  kind  of 
such  injurious  thought,  you  are  constantly  gaining 
more  and  more  power  for  resistance.  "Resist  the 
devil,"  said  the  Christ,  "  and  he  will  flee  from  you." 
There  are  no  devils  save  the  illy  used  forces  of  the 
mind.  But  these  are  most  powerful  to  afflict  and 
torture  us.  An  ugly  or  melancholy  mood  of  mind 
is  a  devil.  It  can  make  us  sick,  lose  us  friends,  and 
lose  us  money.  Money  means  the  enjoyment  of 
necessities  and  comforts.  Without  these  we  cannot 
do  or  be  our  best.  The  sin  involved  in  "love  of 
money  "  is  to  love  money  better  than  the  things 
needful  which  money  can  bring. 

To  bring  to  us  the  greatest  success  in  any  business, 
to  make  the  greatest  advance  in  any  art,  to  further 
any  cause,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  at  certain 
intervals  daily  we  forget  all  about  that  business,  art, 
or  cause.  By  so  doing  we  rest  our  minds,  and  gather 
fresh  force  for  renewed  effort. 

To  be  ever  revolving  the  same  plan,  study,  or  spec- 
ulation, or  what  we  shall  do  or  shall  not  do,  is  to 
waste  such  force  on  a  brain  treadmill.  We  are  in 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OF  FORGETTING.  £ 

thought  saying  to  ourselves  the  same  thing  over  and 
over  again.  We  are  building  of  this  actual,  unseen 
element,  thought,  the  same  constructions  over  and 
over  again.  One  is  a  useless  duplicate  of  the  other. 

If  we  are  always  inclined  to  think  or  converse  on 
one  particular  subject,  if  we  will  never  forget  it,  if 
we  will  start  it  at  all  times  and  places,  if  we  will  not 
in  thought  and  speech  fall  into  the  prevailing  tone  of 
the  conversation  about  us,  if  we  do  not  try  to  get  up 
an  interest  in  what  is  being  talked  of  by  others,  if 
we  determine  only  to  converse  on  what  interests  us, 
or  not  converse  at  all,  we  are  in  danger  of  becoming 
a  "  crank,"  or  "  hobbyist,"  or  monomaniac. 

The  "crank"  draws  his  reputation  on  himself. 
He  is  one  who,  having  forced  one  idea,  and  one  alone 
on  himself,  has  resolved,  perhaps  unconsciously,  to 
force  that  idea  on  every  one  else.  He  will  not  forget 
at  periods  his  pet  theory  or  purpose,  and  adapt  him- 
self to  the  thought  of  others.  For  this  reason  he 
loses  the  power  to  forget,  to  throw  from  his  mind  the 
one  absorbing  thought.  He  drifts  more  and  more 
into  that  one  idea.  He  surrounds  himself  with  its- 
peculiar  thought,  atmosphere,  or  element,  as  real  an. 
element  as  any  we  see  or  feel. 

Others  near  him  feel  this  one-ideaed  thought,  and 
feel  it  disagreeably ;  because  the  thought  of  one 
person  is  felt  by  others  near  him  through  a  sense  as- 
yet  unnamed.  In  the  exercise  of  this  sense  lies  the 
secret  of  your  favorable  or  unfavorable  "impressions  ' 
of  people  at  first  sight.  You  are  in  thought  as  it 
flows  from  you  always,  sending  into  the  air  an  element 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  THE   ART   OF  FORGETTING. 

which  affects  others  for  or  against  you,  according  to 
its  quality,  and  the  acuteness  of  their  sense  which 
feels  thought.  You  are  affected  by  the  thought  of 
others  in  the  same  way,  be  they  far  or  near.  Hence 
we  are  talking  to  others  when  our  tongues  are  still. 
We  are  making  ourselves  hated  or  loved  while  we 
sit  alone  in  the  privacy  of  our  chambers. 

A  crank  often  becomes  a  martyr,  or  thinks  him- 
self one.  There  is  no  absolute  necessity  for  martyr- 
dom in  any  cause,  save  the  necessity  of  ignorance. 
There  never  was  any  absolute  necessity,  save  for  the 
same  cause.  Martyrdom  always  implies  lack  of  judg- 
ment and  tact  in  the  presentation  of  any  principle 
new  to  the  world.  Analyze  martyrdom,  and  you 
will  find  in  the  martyr  a  determination  to  force  on 
people  some  idea  in  an  offensive  and  antagonistic 
form.  People  of  great  ability,  though  dwelling  in 
one  idea,  have  at  last  been  captured  by  it.  The  an- 
tagonism they  drew  from  others,  they  drew  because 
they  held  it  first  in  their  own  mind.  "  I  come  not 
with  peace,"  said  the  Christ,  "  but  a  sword."  The 
time  has  now  come  in  the  world's  history  for  the  sword 
to  be  sheathed.  Many  good  people  unconsciously 
use  swords  in  advising  what  they  deem  better  things. 
There  is  the  sword  (in  thought)  of  the  scolding  re- 
former, the  sword  of  dislike  for  others  because  they 
won't  heed  what  you  say,  and  the  sword  of  preju- 
dice because  others  won't  adopt  your  peculiar  habits. 
Every  discordant  thought  against  others  is  a  sword, 
and  calls  out  from  others  a  sword  in  return.  The 
thought  you  put  out,  you  receive  back  of  the  sams 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OF  FORGETTING.  11 

kind.  The  coming  empire  of  peace  is  to  be  built  up 
by  reconciling  differences,  making  of  enemies  friends, 
telling  people  of  the  good  that  is  in  them  rather  than 
the  bad,  discouraging  gossip  and  evil  speaking  by 
the  introduction  of  subjects  more  pleasant  and  profit- 
able, and  proving  through  one's  life  that  there  are 
laws,  not  generally  recognized,  which  will  give 
health,  happiness,  and  fortune,  without  injustice  or 
injury  to  others.  Its  advocate  will  meet  the  sick 
with  the  smile  of  true  friendship,  and  the  most  dis- 
eased people  are  always  the  greatest  sinners.  The 
most  repulsive  man  or  woman,  the  creature  full  of 
deceit,  treachery,  and  venom,  needs  your  pity  and 
help  of  all  the  most,  for  that  man  or  woman,  through 
generating  evil  thought,  is  generating  pain  and  dis- 
ease for  himself  or  herself. 

You  find  yourself  thinking  of  a  person  unpleas- 
antly from  whom  you  have  received  a  slight  or  insult, 
an  injury  or  injustice.  Such  thought  remains  with 
you  hour  after  hour,  perhaps  day  after  day.  You 
become  at  last  tired  of  it,  yet  cannot  throw  it  off. 
It  annoys,  worries,  frets,  sickens  you.  You  cannot 
prevent  yourself  from  going  round  and  round  on 
this  same  tiresome,  troublesome  track  of  thought. 
It  wears  on  your  spirit ;  and  whatever  wears  on  the 
spirit,  wears  on  the  body. 

This  is  because  you  have  drawn  on  yourself  the 
other  person's  opposing  and  hostile  thought.  He  is 
thinking  of  you  as  you  are  of  him.  He  is  sending 
you  a  wave  of  hostile  thought.  You  are  both  giving 
and  receiving  blows  of  unseen  elements.  You  may 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


12  THE  AKT   OF   FORGETTING. 

keep  up  this  silent  war  of  unseen  force  for  weeks, 
and  if  so,  both  are  injured.  This  contest  of  oppos- 
ing wills  and  forces  is  going  on  all  about  us.  The 
air  is  full  of  it. 

To  strive,  then,  to  forget  enemies,  or  to  throw  out 
to  them  only  friendly  thought,  is  as  much  an  act  of 
self-protection  as  it  is  to  put  up  your  hands  to  ward 
off  a  physical  blow.  The  persistent  thought  of 
friendliness  turns  aside  thought  of  ill-will,  and  ren- 
ders it  harmless.  The  injunction  of  Christ  to  do 
good  to  your  enemies  is  founded  on  a  natural  law. 
It  is  saying  that  the  thought  or  element  of  good-will 
carries  the  greater  power,  and  will  always  turn  aside 
and  prevent  injury  from  the  thought  of  ill-will. 

Demand  forgetfulness  when  you  can  only  think 
of  a  person  or  of  any  thing  with  the  pain  that  comes 
of  grief,  anger,  or  for  any  cause.  Demand  is  a 
state  of  mind  which  sets  in  motion  forces  to  bring 
you  the  result  desired.  Demand  is  the  scientific 
basis  of  prayer.  Do  not  supplicate.  Demand  per- 
sistently your  share  of  force  out  of  the  elements 
about  you,  by  which  you  can  rule  your  mind  to  any 
desired  mood. 

There  are  no  limits  to  the  strength  to  be  gained 
through  the  cultivation  of  our  thought-power.  It 
can  keep  from  us  all  pain  arising  from  grief,  from 
loss  of  fortune,  loss  of  friends,  and  disagreeable 
situations  in  life.  Such  power  is  the  very  element 
or  attitude  of  mind  most  favorable  to  the  gain  of 
fortune  and  friends.  The  stronger  mind  throws  off 
the  burdensome,  wearying,  fretting  thought,  forgets 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   ART   OP   FORGETTING.  13 

it,  and  interests  itself  in  something  else.  The  weaker 
mind  dwells  in  the  fretting,  worrying  thought,  and  is 
enslaved  by  it.  When  you  fear  a  misfortune  (which 
may  never  happen),  your  body  becomes  weak ;  your 
energy  is  paralyzed.  But  you  can,  through  con- 
stantly demanding  it,  dig  out  of  yourself  a  power 
which  can  throw  off  any  fear  or  troublesome  state 
of  mind.  Such  power  is  the  high  road  to  success. 
Demand  it,  and  it  will  increase  more  and  more,  until 
at  last  you  will  know  no  fear.  A  fearless  man  or 
woman  can  accomplish  wonders. 

That  no  individual  may  have  gained  such  amount 
of  this  power,  is  no  proof  that  it  cannot  be  gained. 
Newer  and  more  wonderful  things  are  ever  happen- 
ing in  the  world.  Thirty  years  ago,  and  he  who 
should  assert  that  a  human  voice  could  be  heard 
between  New  York  and  Philadelphia  would  have 
been  called  a  lunatic.  To-day,  the  wonder  of  the 
telephone  is  an  every-day  affair.  The  powers  still 
unrecognized  of  our  thought  will  make  the  telephone 
a  tame  affair.  Men  and  women,  through  cultivation 
and  use  of  this  power,  are  to  do  wonders  which 
fiction  has  not  or  dares  not  put  before  the  world. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  THOUGHTS  ARE  BORN. 


As  in  combinations  of  elements  or  chemicals,  new 
substances  are  formed,  so  in  the  combination  of 
thought  substance,  as  it  flows  and  mingles  from  mind 
to  mind,  new  thoughts  are  formed  or  born. 

The  character  and  quality  of  your  thought  are 
shaded,  and  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  changed,  by 
every  person  with  whom  you  associate,  as  theirs  min- 
gles and  forms  a  new  combination  with  yours.  You 
are,  to  an  extent,  a  different  person  through  convers- 
ing an  hour  yesterday  with  A,  than  if  you  had  inter- 
changed thought  with  B.  You  have  then  grafted  on 
you  a  shade  of  A's  nature,  or  quality  of  thought. 

If  you  are  much  with  the  low  and  degraded,  the 
thought  in  you  born  of  your  thought  chemicalization 
with  theirs,  will  be,  despite  your  greatest  endeavor 
and  aspiration,  weighed  down  with  their  grossness. 
So  "  evil  communications  corrupt  good  manners."  If 
your  associates  be  refined,  pure,  lofty,  aspiring,  the 
thought  born  of  such  commingling  and  chemicaliza- 
tion is  lofty,  pure,  aspiring,  and  powerful. 

Associations  with  the  low  and  impure  lessen  the 
power  of  your  thought.  What  weakens  the  mind 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  HOW  THOUGHTS   ARE   BORN". 

weakens  the  body,  and  also  lessens  the  power  of  your 
thought  to  accomplish  results  afar  from  the  body,  on 
any  business. 

If  there  is  constant  association  and  mingling  of 
the  thought  of  a  broad  and  generous  mind  with  one 
low,  ignoble,  narrow,  and  mean,  the  force  of  the 
higher  spirit  or  thought  may  be  exhausted  in  repel- 
ling the  lower.  Thousands  of  finer  natures  are, 
to-day,  physically  sick,  because  their  spirits  are  sat- 
urated with  the  lower,  grosser,  more  narrow  thought 
of  those  about  them. 

New  thought  or  idea  brings  strength  to  body  as 
well  as  mind.  For  this  reason,  the  real,  active  intel- 
lect of  the  world  lives  long,  like  Victor  Hugo,  Glad- 
stone, Beecher,  Bright,  Bismarck,  Ericcson,  and 
others.  True,  there  is  a  sort  of  fossilized  life  and 
intellect  which  may  exist  many  years,  but  it  enjoys 
little  and  accomplishes  nothing.  Increased  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  thought  (that  great  silent  force 
in  nature)  will,  in  the  future,  enable  the  spirit  to 
use  its  body,  not  only  in  full,  but  ever-increasing 
possession  of  its  mental  and  physical  powers  so  long 
as  it  pleases. 

People's  bodies  decay  and  lose  vigor  through  think- 
ing continually  the  same  set  of  thoughts.  Thought 
is  food  for  your  spirit  as  much  as  is  bread  food  for 
the  body.  Old  thought  is  literally  old,  stale  sub- 
stance or  element.  It  does  not  properly  nourish  the 
spirit.  If  the  spirit  is  starved,  the  body  will  suffer. 
It  will  become  either  a  semi-animated  fossil,  or,  if 
the  spirit  be  sufficiently  strong  to  assert  its  demands 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW    THOUGHTS    ARE   BORN.  3 

caused  by  the  gnawings  of  its  hunger,  there  will  be 
perpetual  unrest,  uneasiness,  and  some  form  of  bodily- 
disease.  From  such  cause  are  thousands  suffering 
to-day.  They  "  grieve  the  spirit."  That  is,  their 
worldly  education,  or  rather  that  portion  of  their 
spirit  trained  almost  unwillingly  to  conform  to  the 
opinion  and  life  about  them,  resists  the  intuition  or 
pleadings  of  their  spirits  which  they  often  deem  fool- 
ish whims  and  fancies. 

New  thought  is  new  life,  and  renewal  of  life.  A 
new  idea,  plan,  or  purpose  fills  us  with  hope  and 
vigor.  One  secret  of  eternal  life  and  happiness  is  to 
be  ever  pushing  forward  toward  the  new,  or  "  forget- 
ting the  things  which  are  behind,  and  pressing  for- 
ward to  those  which  are  before."  Eternity  and 
endless  space  are  exhaustless  of  the  new.  Senility 
comes  through  ever  looking  back  and  living  in  the 
past.  You  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  person  you 
were  a  year  ago,  save  to  profit  by  that  person's  ex- 
perience. That  person  is  dead.  The  "  You  "  of  to- 
day.is  another  and  a  newer  individual.  The  "You" 
of  next  year  will  be  still  another  and  a  newer  one. 

"  I  die  daily,"  says  Paul.  By  which  he  inferred 
that  some  thought  of  yesterday  was  dead  to-day,  and 
cast  off  like  an  old  garment.  In  its  place  was  the 
newer  one.  When  our  spirits  are  growing  health- 
fully, we  have  done  forever  with  a  part  of  ourselves 
at  each  day's  end.  That  part  is  dead.  It  is  with  us 
a  dead  thought.  We  have  no  further  use  for  it.  To 
use  it  will  injure  us.  It  is  cast  off  as  our  bodies 
daily  cast  off  a  certain  portion  of  dead  skin.  To  him 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  HOW  THOUGHTS  ARE  BORN. 

or  her,  who  has  increase  of  new  thought,  a  new  world 
is  lived  in  daily.  As  regards  happiness,  it  does  not 
matter  so  much  where  we  are,  so  that  we  can  bring 
to  ourselves  this  daily  inflowing  of  new  thought.  We 
can  so  bring  to  ourselves  happiness  in  a  dungeon 
when  people  closed  to  new  idea  are  miserable  in  pal- 
aces. We  are,  then,  on  the  road  to  an  independence, 
almost  complete,  of  the  physical  world.  Independ- 
ence means  power.  So  long  as  we  are  in  any  way 
dependent  on  a  person,  a  food,  a  drug,  a  stimulant, 
or  any  condition  of  things  about  us,  are  we  to  that 
extent  the  slave  of  these  things.  So  perpetual  in- 
flowing of  new  idea  makes  a  way  for  escape  out  of 
the  dungeons  of  material  and  spiritual  poverty.  You 
may  be  rich  in  this  world's  goods,  yet  very  poor  in 
not  being  able  to  enjoy  them.  You  cannot  long  re- 
main poor  in  the  worldly  sense,  if  you  are  spiritually 
rich.  But  spiritual  richness  asks  for  no  more  than 
it  can  use  and  enjoy  for  the  hour  and  the  day.  It 
will  not  hoard  in  bank  vaults. 

Daily  inflowing  of  new  thought  brings  new  power. 
To  him  or  her  who  so  daily  receives,  a  fresh  force  is 
added,  pushing  their  undertakings  farther  forward 
toward  success.  The  silent  force  of  your  mind  then 
keeps  up  its  steady  pressure  on  other  minds  who  are 
consciously  or  unconsciously  co-operating  with  you. 

In  the  higher  realms  of  mind  are  those  who  are 
ever  joyous,  cheerful,  and  confident  of  future  success 
and  happiness.  They  have  lived  up  to  the  Law,  and 
proven  it.  With  them  "faith  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory."  They  know  that  by  keeping  the  mind  in 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  THOUGHTS   ARE  BORN.  5 

a  certain  state,  properly  controlling  their  thoughts, 
there  is  brought  a  constant  inflowing  of  happiness 
and  power.  Because  power  and  happiness  must 
move  together.  So  must  sin,  pain,  and  weakness. 
They  know,  also,  that  their  every  plan  (the  Law 
being  followed)  must  prove  a  success.  Hence,  life 
with  them  must  be  a  constant  succession  of  victories. 
Of  this  their  faith  or  belief  is  as  certain  as  is  ours 
that  fire  will  burn,  or  that  water  will  extinguish  fire. 

We  can,  by  earnestly  and  persistently  desiring  it, 
connect  ourselves  with  this  order  of  mind,  and  draw 
from  them  new  life  and  force-giving  element.  We 
clear  the  way  to  such  valuable  connection  by  the 
endeavor  to  drive  from  us  all  envy,  gloom,  quarrel- 
some, or  other  impure  thought.  Any  thought  doing 
us  harm  is  an  impure  thought.  Lifelong  habit  may 
make  this  at  first  a  difficult  task.  Constant  effort  or 
aspiration  will  drive  such  damaging  thought  away 
with  more  and  more  ease.  All  impure  thought  is  as 
rubbish  or  uncleanliness  about  us,  preventing  the 
near  approach  of  the  higher  order  of  mind.  A 
thought  to  such  a  spirit  is  as  real  a  thing  as  is  a 
stone  to  us.  To  them  in  thought  we  may  be  literally 
covered  with  garbage  —  or  flowers. 

A  great  poet,  artist,  writer,  general,  or  other  worker 
in  any  department  of  life,  may  have  had  a  large  share 
of  his  greatness  due  to  his  mediumship  for  unseen 
intelligences  to  work  through.  He  may  have  been 
more  the  mouthpiece  for  them  than  the  originator. 

A  man  may  be  small,  mean,  petty,  vain,  and  the 
victim  of  inordinate  passions,  yet  at  times  give  ele- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  HOW   THOUGHTS   AEE  BORN". 

gant  expression  to  the  most  exalted  sentiments.  A 
small  part  of  this  man's  intellect  responded  to  these 
sentiments.  But  his  defects,  his  passions,  his  vices, 
are  greatly  in  the  ascendency.  In  certain  moods  he 
soars  to  sublime  heights  ;  in  his  ordinary  mood  he  is 
relatively  a  small  man.  We  have  had  poets  whose 
sentiments,  as  given  at  different  times,  are  almost 
contradictory.  They  express  at  one  time  purity ;  at 
another,  the  reverse.  Their  known  lives  have  been 
low,  coarse,  and  grovelling. 

Such  natures  are  used  at  favorable  moments  for  a 
higher  grade  of  unseen  intelligence,  to  express  then: 
thought  through.  It  is  an  absolute  necessity  for  an 
intellect  overflowing  with  richness  of  thought,  with 
visions  of  the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  life's  possibil- 
ities, to  give  expression  to  that  thought.  This  neces- 
sity is  a  law  of  nature.  Such  minds  are  as  pent-up 
springs,  which  must  burst  forth.  It  is  not  for  such 
a  duty,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  word ;  it  is  a 
necessity.  If  you  are  rich  in  thought,  you  must  give 
out  of  such  thought  wherever  you  find  opportunity. 
You  are  as  a  tree  overloaded  with  ripe  fruit.  When 
the  fruit  is  ripe,  it  must  fall  ;  when  the  thought  is 
ripe,  it  must  come  forth.  If  there  be  none  near  you 
to  hear  it,  you  must  go  where  it  can  be  heard ;  you 
must  go  from  the  necessity  of  self-preservation.  You 
cannot  with  safety  keep  a  gift,  a  talent,  a  truth,  a 
capacity  for  doing  any  thing  well,  all  to  yourself. 

As  spirits  grow  in  richness  of  thought,  as  they 
«ven  become  oppressed  by  their  own  weight  of  rich- 
ness, do  they  seek  in  every  direction  to  give  out  this 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  THOUGHTS   AEE  BORN.  7 

richness.  They  may  find  an  impressional  organiza- 
tion on  the  earth  stratum  of  life  ;  they  can  to  such 
impressional  come  singly  and  give  of  their  thought ; 
or,  through  a  certain  co-operation,  a  number  of  such 
minds  united  in  purpose  and  motive,  may  come  in  a 
troop  to  the  individual ;  they  may,  for  a  period,  sur- 
round him  or  her  with  their  own  atmosphere  of 
thought.  Such  atmosphere  will  act  on  the  individual 
as  a  stimulant.  It  raises  him  in  thought  far  above 
his  ordinary  level.  He  sees  all  things  for  the  mo- 
ment, in  the  light  of  a  life  higher  and  purer  than  any 
lived  about  him.  In  this  mental  condition,  sentiment 
of  an  exalted  order  is  impressed  upon  his  mind ;  in 
other  words,  this  co-operation  of  higher  minds  en- 
ables them  to  bring  of  their  thought  an  actual  sub- 
stance, and  keep  it  longer  near  the  impressional  on 
earth.  He  absorbs  it,  and  feels  its  powerful  influ- 
ence. He  is,  in  fact,  "  inspired  "  by  it ;  that  is,  he 
breathes  it  in.  He  is  exhilarated,  almost  intoxicated 
by  it,  because  refined  and  powerful  thought  is  a 
stimulant,  whose  influence  on  the  individual  is  in 
proportion  to  the  fineness  of  such  individual's  organ- 
ization, his  impressionability,  or  his  or  her  capacity 
to  receive  of  such  thought.  Such  stimulation  is  but 
another  name  for  "  magnetic  influence."  You  have 
in  this  the  secret  of  the  attraction  one  person  may 
have  for  another.  The  person  attracted  is  actually 
stimulated  while  near  the  other,  by  the  thought 
absorbed  from  the  one  who  attracts. 

In  the  condition  of  mind  above  stated,  a  poet  may 
give  expression  to  the  thought  so  brought  to  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  HOW   THOUGHTS  AKE  BOBN. 

surrounding  him  after  his  own  taste  or  tendency  as 
to  rhythm  and  measure.  Or  the  poem  in  question 
may  be  actually  dictated  to  him. 

Under  similar  mental  states  brought  about  by  the 
3auses  above  mentioned  are  novels  written  and  in- 
ventions dropped  into  minds.  Artists  and  sculptors 
may  work  under  such  inspiration.  Generals  have 
been  similarly  prompted  and  aided  in  military  opera- 
tions. In  the  world  of  business  and  finance  the 
same  law  is  at  work.  It  is  operating  on  every  grade 
of  purpose  and  motive,  be  it  low  or  high.  There  is 
no  great  result  effected  in  any  department  of  life,  no 
great  effort  of  thought,  no  great  invention,  that  comes 
of  the  unaided  agency  of  any  single  mind.  We  are 
all  parts  of  the  same  whole.  We  are  all  members  of 
the  same  body.  We  can  do  nothing  without  co-op- 
eration, and  the  human  unit  who  thinks  it  does  is  so 
thinking  in  the  simplicity  of  its  ignorance. 

The  poet  who  has  so  written  under  the  inspiring 
power  of  another  or  other  minds  may  pass  away  with 
a  great  name.  Yet  he  may  not  have  deserved  all 
the  reputation  he  gained.  His  writings  are  largely 
the  result  of  the  thought  concentrated  upon  him  by 
a  co-operative  association  of  unseen  intelligences. 
They  unloaded  their  thought  upon  him,  partly  to 
relieve  themselves.  So  relieved,  they  were  then  able 
to  climb  higher,  and  absorb  of  newer,  finer  ideas. 
So  fast  as  you  give  out  to  others  of  your  present 
thought  and  idea,  so  fast  will  you  receive  of  the  new. 
If  you  hold  back,  you  prevent  for  yourself  the  ab- 
sorption of  the  newer  thought.  If  you  are  a  medium 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  THOUGHTS  ABE  BORN.  9 

for  any  of  the  forces  of  the  universe  to  pass  through 
and  be  transmitted  to  others,  you  must  be  careful 
that  nothing  prevents  the  free  passage  of  new 
thought  through  you.  The  moment  you  hold  back 
any  truth,  any  plan,  scheme,  or  invention,  with  the 
idea  that  it  is  exclusively  your  own,  you  are  clogging 
up  that  mediumship. 

You  will  be  made  poorer  in  every  sense  by  such 
holding  back.  If  you  give  freely  you  will  increase 
in  richness,  and  out  of  your  overflowing  richness  you 
can  easily  retain  enough  to  bring  you  every  needed 
material  aid.  The  text,  "  Freely  have  ye  received,, 
freely  give,"  is  based  on  a  scientific  fact  in  the  un- 
seen kingdom  of  thought. 

There  are  re-embodied  spirits  to-day  on  the  earthT 
who,  during  a  former  and  quite  recent  existence,  had 
a  great  reputation  in  some  field  of  effort.  There  are 
on  earth  to-day  poets  who  enjoy  but  a  tithe  of  their 
fame  in  a  former  existence. 

One  reason  for  this  is,  that  much  of  their  source 
of  inspiration  has  passed  away.  That  is,  the  troop  of 
spirits  who  in  the  former  existence  came  to  them  of 
necessity  to  unload  of  their  richness  of  thought, 
no  longer  labor  under  such  necessity,  so  far  a& 
the  mediumship  of  the  impressional  is  concerned. 
These  intelligences  still  have  need  to  give  of  their 
thought  in  some  place.  But  the  thought  they  now 
absorb  may  be  too  fine  to  be  received  by  any  on 
earth. 

With  some,  idea  is  organic.  They  are  creators  as 
well  as  absorbers  of  thought.  These  are  they  \vua 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  HOW   THOUGHTS   ARE   BORN. 

try  to  live  up  to  their  highest  ideal,  and  in  the  great- 
est variety  of  life  and  occupation.  When  one  sees 
the  necessity  of  doing  this,  he  brings  to  himself  all 
that  is  best  in  the  universe  that  he  can  appropriate. 
He  is  an  absorber  of  spirit  from  every  side.  He  puts 
out  this  same  spirit  again,  colored  with  his  or  her  in- 
dividuality. Every  such  individual  is  as  a  glass 
reflector  tinged  with  some  peculiar  shade.  The  light 
within,  shining  through  such  shade,  spreads  rays  of  the 
same  light  on  every  side.  The  light  represents  the 
spirit.  The  globe  or  reflector  represents  the  individ- 
ual the  light  shines  through.  The  oil  in  our  lamps 
may  all  come  from  the  same  source.  The  lights  in  a 
series  of  lamps  may  be  of  as  many  different  colors  as 
there  are  globes  stained  of  different  colors.  So  in  a 
series  of  individualized  persons,  though  each  is  fed 
of  the  same  spirit,  yet  each  reflects  a  peculiar  light  of 
his  own. 

We  can  be  creative  and  original  as  we  absorb  of 
any  spirit,  and  make  its  expression  original.  You  see 
and  admire  the  method  of  an  actor  or  artist ;  then 
you  absorb  of  his  thought.  But  you  will  not  be  a 
mere  copy  of  his  method.  His  thought  combines 
with  your  own.  There  is  an  actual  chemical  opera- 
tion of  unseen  element.  There  is  a  combination  of 
his  thought  and  your  own,  resulting  in  the  formation, 
of  a  new  element  —  your  own  original  idea.  The 
purer  your  thought  and  motive,  the  more  unselfish 
your  purpose,  the  greater  the  rapidity  of  such  com- 
bination, the  more  original  and  striking  your  thought. 
Wv  such  means  is  thought  born  in  you.  The  qualities 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW   THOUGHTS  AKB  BORN.  11 

of  justice  and  unselfishness  are  themselves  elements 
and  scientific  factors  in  such  birth. 

The  selfish  spirit  is  content  with  being  the  mere 
borrower.  If  it  appropriates  another's  thought  or 
idea,  without  ever  crediting  such  idea  to  its  rightful 
owner,  or  the  desire  so  to  credit  it,  it  will  always 
remain  a  borrower.  But  people  to  borrow  from  will 
not  always  be  at  hand.  There  MUST  come  a  time,  in 
this  life  or  another,  when  such  a  spirit  will  be  left 
entirely  to  its  own  resources.  It  will  then  find  itself 
poor.  It  will  be  crippled  by  the  habit  of  borrowing. 
It  will  find  that  this  habit  prevents  the  chemical 
assimilation  and  birth  of  the  new  element,  or,  in  other 
words,  original  or  individually  shaded  idea.  You 
have  simply  taken  another's  property,  and  passed  it 
off  as  your  own.  You  have  not  been  a  manufacturer. 
You  have  been  only  a  receiver  of  another's  manu- 
factures. 

It  matters  little  whether  you  absorb  idea  in  this 
way,  and  use  it  as  your  own,  from  minds  whose  bodies 
are  visible  to  you  or  invisible.  You  still  remain  the 
mere  borrower.  You  hurt  thereby  the  power  of 
making  your  own  peculiar  shade  of  individuality  of 
light. 

If  spirits  finding  an  impressional  organization 
thrust  their  thought  continually  upon  it  through 
their  own  desire  for  expression,  make  it  a  perpetual 
mouthpiece,  talk  or  write  through  such  person  con- 
tinually, they  may  do  a  great  injustice  and  injury. 
No  matter  how  high  or  useful  their  thought,  yet  this 
pouring  of  ideas  continually  through  one  mind 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


12  HOW  THOUGHTS   ARE  BORN. 

habit  and  desire  of  doing  nothing  else  but 
write  or  act,  or  perform  some  one  thing  continually. 
This  will  cause  the  person  to  grow  all  on  one  side. 
The  balanced  mind,  the  harmonious  and  organized 
adjustment  of  qualities  necessary  for  the  begetting 
of  more  and  more  originality,  must  come  also  of 
seeing  and  participating  in  all  possible  shades  and 
kinds  of  life,  as  well  as  pure  and  unselfish  motive. 
You  need  to  mingle  and  sympathize  with  all  manner 
of  people,  all  manner  of  employments,  all  manner  of 
professions,  to  make  your  own  conceptions  character- 
ized by  the  greatest  originality.  You  will  then  (un- 
selfish motive  being  implied)  not  be  a  patchwork  of 
borrowed  bits  from  all  with  whom  you  come  in  con- 
tact ;  but  a  mosiac,  of  which  every  idea  taken  from 
others  and  grafted  on  your  own  has  an  individuality 
peculiarly  your  own. 


Thoughts  &re  Things. 


THE  LAW  OF  SUCCESS. 


SUCCESS  in  any  business  or  undertaking  comes 
through  the  working  of  a  law.  It  never  comes  by 
chance :  in  the  operations  of  nature's  laws,  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  chance  or  accident.  The  so- 
called  accidental  tumbling  of  the  stone  from  the 
mountain-side  is  the  result  of  forces  which  have 
been  acting  in  that  stone  through  countless  ages. 

You  and  your  fortunes  are  no  more  the  things  of 
chance  than  is  the  tree  from  its  earliest  growth. 
You  are  the  product  of  the  elements,  and  that  prod- 
uct through  the  working  of  a  law.  You  can,  as  you 
find  out  the  law,  make  of  yourself  whatever  you 
please. 

Your  thought,  or  spirit,  and  not  your  body,  is  your 
real  self. 

Your  thought  is  an  invisible  substance,  as  real  as 
air,  water,  or  metal.  It  acts  apart  from  your  body ; 
it  goes  from  you  to  others,  far  and  near ;  it  acts  on 
them,  moves  and  influences  them.  It  does  this 
whether  your  body  be  sleeping  or  waking. 

This  is  your  real  power.  As  you  learn  how  this 
power  really  acts ;  as  you  learn  how  to  hold,  use,  and 
control  it, — you  will  do  more  profitable  business,  and 
accomplish  more  in  an  hour  than  now  you  may  do 
in  a  week.  You  will  continually  increase  this  power 
by  exercise.  This,  and  only  this,  was  the  basis  of 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  THE  LAW  OF   SUCCESS. 

the  miracles,  the  magic  or  occult  power  of  ancient 
times. 

Your  prevailing  mood,  or  frame  of  mind,  has  more 
to  do  than  any  thing  else  with  your  success  or  failure 
in  any  undertaking.  Your  mind  is  that  amount  of 
thought-substance  which  has  come  together  during 
countless  ages,  and  after  using  many  physical  bodies. 
The  mind  is  a  magnet.  It  has  the  power,  first  of 
attracting  thought,  and  next  of  sending  that  thought 
out  again.  You  do  not,  of  yourself,  make  your 
thought:  you  only  receive  and  feel  it  as  it  comes 
to  you. 

What  kind  of  thought  you*most  charge  that  mag- 
net (your  mind)  with,  or  set  it  open  to  receive,  it 
will  attract  most  of  that  kind  to  you.  If,  then,  you 
think,  or  keep  most  in  mind,  the  mere  thought  of 
determination,  hope,  cheerfulness,  strength,  force, 
powers-justice,  gentleness,  order,  and  precision,  you 
will  \attraci  and  receive  more  and  more  of  such 
thought-elements. 

These  are  among  the  elements  of  success.  These 
qualities  are  of  thought-element  as  real  things  as 
any  we  see  or  feel.  The  more  you  set  the  magnet 
in  this  direction,  the  stronger  it  grows  to  attract  these 
elements. 

Whatever  of  thought  you  think  or  receive,  you 
send  from  you  again,  an  invisible  substance  to  act  on 
others. 

Your  own  thought  is  now  in  the  air,  acting  on 
and  attracting  to  you  of  its  kind  the  thought  of 
others,  whose  bodies  you  may  never  have  seen.  The 
people  you  are  in  the  future  to  meet,  who  may  help 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW  OF  SUCCESS.  5> 

n  damage  your  fortunes,  are  those  whose  thought  in 
like  manner  sent  far  from  their  bodies  has  already 
met  and  mingled  with  your  own.  That  attraction 
tends  to  bring  you  together  in  the  body.  It  will 
certainly  bring  you  together  in  some  form  of 
existence. 

When  determined  thought  meets  determined 
thought,  and  unites  on  a  similar  purpose,  a  double 
power  for  success  comes  of  such  union,  be  the  bodies 
used  by  such  thought,  mind,  or  spirit,  in  the  same 
house  or  a  thousand  miles  apart.  But  if  you  are 
thinking  most  of  the  time  discouragement  or  anger, 
or  any  form  of  ill-temper,  you  are  sending  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  miles  away  from  your  body  this- 
thought-element  of  discouragement,  hopelessness,  or 
anger,  literally  a  part  of  your  unseen  self.  It- 
attracts,  meets  and  mingles  with  the  same  thought- 
element  similarly  sent  out  by  others  (parts  of  such< 
people).  So  it  attracts  you  to  them,  your  partners. 
in  misery.  You  hurt  each  other's  health  and  fortune.. 

A  thought  attracts  thought  of  like  kind.  Keep  j 
any  thought  fixed  in  your  mind,  say  the  thought  of 
^trength_or_health,  and  you  attract  to  you  more  and 
more  of  the  thought-element  of  strength  and  health. 
Keep  in  mind  the  idea  of  force,  "  go-ahead,"  push, 
and  you  attract  to  you  in  element  that  which  givea 
you  force,  push,  and  go-ahead. 

So  long  as  you  are  in  a  confident,  determined,. 
serene  frame  of  mind,  having  some  special  aim  in 
view  BASED  ON  RIGHT  AND  JUSTICE,  so  long  are 
you  'noving  in  this  way  the  strongest  silent  power  of 
your  thought  in  attracting  to  you  the  persons  you 

Thoughts  are  Things, 


45  THE  LAW   OP   SUCCESS. 

.need  to  co-operate  with.  If  your  aim  is  not  based 
on  right  and  justice,  you  will  still  move  this  silent 
power  of  your  mind,  but  it  will  not  affect  results  so 
^beneficial  to  you  as  your  thought  based  on  your 
highest  idea  of  right. 

If  you  wish  to  gain  through  deceit  and  craft,  you 
•can  do  so.  You  will  attract,  by  the  same  law  and 
method,  deceitful  and  dishonest  thought  in  advance 
of  its  body.  You  will  then  work  with  the  dishonest 
in  the  body.  Dishonest  mind  herds  together  through 
a  natural  law.  The  dishonest  are  certain  to  injure 
•each  other  at  last  in  some  way. 

A  thought,  be  it  good  or  bad,  is  a  thing  or  con- 
struction of  unseen  element  as  real  as  a  tree,  a 
flower,  a  clock.  It  is  already  made  before  you  think 
or  receive  it,  as  your  mind  through  its  mood,  frame, 
.or  attitude  attracts  it.  As  you  think  it,  you  put  it 
out  again  to  act,  move,  or  influence  others.  But 
your  thought  spoken  or  whispered  in  the  privacy  of 
jour  room  is  put  out  with  more  force  so  to  act  on 
•others  than  if  you  merely  "  think  it."  And  if  two 
or  more  persons  talk  together  without  wrangle  or 
•disagreement  on  a  common  purpose  in  any  business, 
they  send  out  a  proportionately  greater  volume  of 
force  to  work  on  other  minds  relative  to  such  busi- 
ness. If  your  company  so  putting  out  thought-ele- 
ment or  force  do  not  agree,  if  they  are  angry  and 
•wrangle  with  each  other,  the  force  so  sent  from  then) 
is  injurious  to  that  business.  If  they  talk  peacefully, 
:and  will  set  aside  individual  preferences  or  preju. 
dices  in  order  to  work  out  the  common  purpose  in 
the  thought  or  force  they  generate  is  con 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW  OF   SUCCESS.  7 

structive,  and  acts  favorably  on  other  minds  far  and 
near  to  advance  that  business. 

So  whenever  you  think,  you  are  affecting  your 
fortunes  for  good  or  ill ;  and  whenever  you  talk  to 
others,  you  are  making  a  force  still  greater  to  make 
or  lose  for  you  health,  friends,  and  money.  Every 
thought  of  yours,  silent  or  spoken,  has  a  literal 
value. 

If  you  receive  (that  is,  think)  the  thought  that 
you  cannot  succeed  in  any  undertaking,  that  thought 
also  goes  out,  meets  and  attracts  other  discouraged, 
despondent  "  I  can't "  thought,  brings  you  nearer  and 
nearer  the  hopeless,  fretting  people's  bodies  it  is  in 
advance  of,  injures  your  health  and  all  pushing  busi- 
ness ability,  and  brings  you  at  last  in  personal  con- 
tact with  people  who  only  help  to  ruin  each  other. 

You  are  working  then  your  thought-power  for  non- 
success.  You  can  use  this  power  to  bring  you  good 
or  ill  results,  as  you  can  use  the  locomotive  to  carry 
your  body  on  a  journey,  or  to  crush  your  body  by 
throwing  yourself  before  it. 

Whatever  plan  or  scheme  of  business  you  fix  your 
mind  persistently  upon  in  the  determination  to  suc- 
ceed^it  commences  then  as  a  thought-construction  of 
unseen  element  to  draw  aiding  forces  to  you.  By 
"  aiding  forces  "  is  meant  first,  ever  growing  fertility 
of  mind  to  breed  new  plans  for  pushing  your  busi- 
ness ;  secondly,  drawing  to  you  the  best  people  to 
aid  you  in  your  plans. 

Do  not  waste  your  power  in  looking  for  such  aid- 
ing forces  with  your  body.  Let  silent,  persistent 
resolve  in  mind  do  the  work.  It  will  do  it  if  you 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  THE  LAW   OF   SUCCESS. 

persevere  holding  to  this  frame  of  mind.  It  is  no 
new  power,  though  possibly  new  to  most  of  us.  It 
is  constantly,  though  unconsciously,  exercised  for 
good  or  ill  all  about  us.  Because  your  body  is  not 
the  only  power  you  have  t6  work  with.  Your  body 
is  only  the  instrument  used  by  your  mind,  or  spirit. 
Your  mind,  your  invisible  self,  uses  your  body  in, 
say,  cutting  down  a  tree,  or  other  work  of  hand, 
exactly  as  your  body  uses  the  axe.  But  when  such 
force  (thought)  is  not  using  the  body,  it  is  at  work 
with  greater  power  elsewhere. 

I  "To  think  persistent  resolve,  to  think  persistent 
push  in  your  one  aim  and  purpose,  —  to  simply  think 
it,  and  do  nothing  else,  —  will  create  for  you  a  power 
as  certain  to  move  and  effect  results  as  the  jack- 
screws  placed  under  the  heaviest  building  will  move 
it  upward.  The  power  you  so  create  of  your  mind 
and  of  unseen  forces  will  work  while  you  sleep.  It 
will  bring  to  you  new  devices,  plans,  and  methods 
for  moving  your  business  forward.  And  as  you  get 
these  plans,  they  will  move  your  body  to  act.  You 
cannot  sit  still  when  an  idea  that  means  business 
monies  to  you :  such  idea  is  for  you  power.  But  you 
can  tire  your  body  to  such  an  extent  that  you  will 
have  no  power  to  receive  an  idea  when  it  does  come. 
All  successful  business  is  based  on  a  continual  in- 
flowing of  new  idea,  plan,  device,  scheme. 

Your  spirit,  or  thought,  acts  and  works  on  others 
while  your  body  sleeps.  It  may  do  this  with  those 
whose  bodies  are  also  asleep.  If  you  are  angry  or 
discouraged  on  going  to  sleep,  your  invisible  self  on 
leaving  its  body  will  probably  be  attracted  to  some 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW  OF   SUCCESS.  9 

other  angry  or  discouraged  nature.  The  better  mood 
you  are  in  on  quitting  your  body  at  night,  and  enter- 
ing on  your  other  existence,  the  better  the  thought 
or  person  you  will  meet  in  that  existence  to  further 
your  purpose.  If  you  have  no  purpose,  you  will  then 
probably  meet  with  another  purposeless  nature.  To 
have  no  special  purpose  in  life,  to  simply  drift,  is  to 
have  nothing  on  which  to  focus  or  concentrate  your 
thought-power.  If  it  is  not  so  concentrated,  but  scat- 
tered, fastening  on  one  thing  to-day,  and  another  to- 
morrow, you  will  be  restless,  moping,  and  unhappy  in 
mind.  If  unhappy  in  mind,  you  can  never  be  healthy 
in  body. 

Spirit,  or  thought,  is  always  active,  be  the  body 
asleep  or  awake.  When  the  body  is  unconscious  in 
sleep,  your  mind  then  enters  on  its  other  phase  of  life 
and  activity.  You  have  only  exchanged  one  form  of 
existence  for  another.  When  you  awake,  you  do  lit- 
erally "  take  the  body  up  "  to  use  for  purposes  on  the 
earth-stratum  of  life. 

Your  thought  acts  on  others,  for  or  against  you,  far 
and  near,  while  you  are  awake.  But  it  acts  more 
strongly  on  those  to  whom  it  is  attracted  when  your 
body  sleeps.  It  is  then  less  distracted  by  the  hopes, 
fears,  prejudices,  customs,  and  surroundings  of  its 
body-life.  It  is  better,  then,  if  you  have  any  purpose 
in  view,  not  to  fix  your  thought  too  strongly  when 
awake  on  such  persons  as  you  may  think  may  co- 
operate with  you,  because  your  spirit,  when  out  of 
its  body,  has  a  much  wider  range  of  acquaintance 
and  action  than  when  using  its  body.  You  may 
concentrate  its  force  overmuch,  while  it  holds  the 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  THE  LAW  OF  SUCCESS. 

body,  on  some  person  less  likely  to  help  you  than  the 
person  or  thought  to  which  it  is  attracted  while 
away  from  the  body.  In  such  case  its  force  is  placed 
in  two  directions  when  it  should  be  but  in  one. 
Talking  your  business  plan  or  project  makes  force  for 
or  against  you.  A  clear  plan  or  idea  by  which  you 
can  make  more  money  represents  force.  A  muddled 
plan  represents  a  lesser  and  imperfect  force.  A  new 
invention  is  a  new  force.  Talking  your  business 
with  those  who  are  really  friendly  to  you,  actively 
friendly,  and  without  a  shade  of  envy  or  grudge 
against  you,  adds  their  thought  or  force  to  your  own 
for  making  clearer  plans,  and  working  on  other  minds, 
and  enlisting  them  in  some  way  in  your  favor.  Syn> 
pathy  is  force.  Any  person's  good  will  is  a  real,  liv- 
ing, active  substance,  flowing  always  to  you  as  that 
person  thinks  of  you.  It  has  a  commercial  value  in 
dollars  and  cents.  Ill  will  is  also  an  element  sent 
from  the  person  that  thinks  it,  and  works  against  you 
though  that  person  never  speaks  or  acts  with  the 
body  against  you.  This  you  can  only  successfully 
oppose  by  putting  out  against  it  the  thought-element 
of  friendliness.  The  thought  of  good  to  others  is  the 
stronger  unseen  element,  and  can  turn  the  bad  (the 
weaker)  aside.  It  prevents  it  from  reaching  or  harm- 
ing you. 

Through  the  working  of  that  same  law,  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  make  enemies,  no  matter  how  good  or  just 
the  cause. 

To  talk  your  business  at  random,  is  (not  only  to 
give  your  secrets  to  such  as  will  tell  them  to  others, 
but  it  is  to  send  your  secrets  and  plans  in  thought- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW  OP   SUCCESS.  11 

element  flying  far  and  wide  in  the  air.  Then  they 
fall  into  other  minds,  and  you  may  find  your  plan, 
used  by  others  before  you.  The  air  is  literally  full 
of  supposed  secrets.  They  herald  themselves  to 
thousands  in  the  form  of  suspicion  and  impressions 

Every  disorderly  meeting,  every  family  quarrel, 
every  discordance  between  man  and  man,  sends  into 
the  air  a  wave  of  destructive  and  unpleasant  sub- 
stance. It  affects  unpleasantly  minds  thousands  of 
miles  distant.  The  thought  so  coming  from  some 
centre  of  turbulence  forms  a  wave,  or  current.  If 
you  are  by  some  trifle  made  angry,  you  then  place 
your  mind  in  the  attitude  of  a  magnet  to  attract- 
and  let  in  this  hurtful  thought-current.  Your  anger, 
peevishness,  or  irritation,  caused  at  first  by  a  trifle, 
is  constantly  fed  from  these  currents.  You  must,  for 
relief,  turn  your  mind  toward  some  more  agreeable- 
order  of  thought.  Practice  in  so  doing  will  give  you: 
more  power,  and  make  it  more  and  more  easy  to 
change  the  character  of  the  thought-element  coming 
to  you. 

When  interest,  sympathy,  and  good  will  meet  to 
present  pleasantly  their  opinions  or  thoughts  on  any 
special  subject  to  each  other,  for  an  hour,  there  goes 
from  that  company  a  wave  of  thought-substance, 
which  strikes  other  minds,  and  awakens  or  renews 
interest  in  that  especial  business,  art,  or  cause,  ia 
proportion  to  the  sensitiveness  or  capacity  of  sucb 
minds  to  receive  thoughts.  The  new  thought  com- 
ing suddenly  to  you,  comes  because  somewhere  it  is 
being  talked  out  or  agitated.  The  wave  so  caused 
acts  in  unseen  element  precisely  like  that  made  by 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


12  THE  LAW  OF   SUCCESS. 

throwing  the  stone  in  calm  water.  The  waves  so 
radiate  from  the  talk-centre ;  and  they  will  continue 
to  spread  out  in  every  direction,  striking  other  minds, 
so  long  as  the  agitation  of  talk  is  kept  up  at  that 
centre.  No  thought  is,  in  a  sense,  original.  The 
.same  idea,  or  parts  or  shades  of  that  idea,  may  float 
into  a  thousand  minds  within  an  hour,  when  once 
started,  through  a  few  people  talking  it.  Talk  with 
others  in  friendliness  about  an  improvement  in 
machinery,  a  new  invention,  a  new  idea  for  man's 
•comfort,  and  through  thought-substance  so  sent  far 
and  wide  you  awaken  desire  or  interest  for  the  thing 
talked  of.  The  more  people  interested  in  a  thing, 
the  more  will  be  attracted  to  you  to  aid  you,  or  buy 
the  thing  produced. 

Regarding  your  plan,  purpose,  and  aim,  all  your 
discreet  talk,  your  interest  and  persistent  determina- 
tion, represent  for  you  so  much  actual  outlay  of 
force  expended  in  attracting  the  thing  desired  to 
you.  If  you  expend  such  amount  of  force  for,  say, 
three  months,  and  then  get  discouraged,  and  give  it 
;all  up,  you  abandon  so  much  of  a  structure  you 
have  built  up  having  this  attracting  power.  You 
may  not  see  where  that  power  is  operating.  But  it 
is  at  work,  bringing  to  you  the  people  in  sympathy 
with  you,  or  those  who  want  what  you  have  to  give. 

Quarrelling,  angry  argument,  and  grumbling  put 
out  the  silent  destructive  force.  Friendly  discussion, 
and  peaceful  presentation  of  individual  opinion,  put 
out  the  silent  constructive  force.  If  you  set  your 
mind  persistently  in  the  desire  for  having  the  best 
people  to  talk  to,  and  so  aid  you,  they  will  come  to 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW  OP   SUCCESS.  13 

you  through  this  power  of  thought-attraction.  Ex- 
actly the  order  of  mind  will  so  come  you  most  desire. 
If  you  are  not  particular  as  to  principle  or  honesty 
this  law  will  attract  those  not  particular  as  to  honesty. 

There  will  always  be  a  demand  for  a  better  article,  ~ 
a  better  effort  in  any  art,  or  a  better  service  of  any 
kind,  than  those  before  produced.  When  you  are 
sure  yours  is  the  better  effort,  push  it.  Get  it  be- 
fore people.  Talent  in  art  or  invention  is  one  thing. 
Talent  for  pushing  that  art  or  invention  is  quite 
another.  You  must,  to  be  successful,  have  both. 
The  world  pays  best  those  who  push.  Hundreds  of 
inventors  and  artists  fail  because  they  do  no^/cultivate 
the  science  of  pushing  themselves  before  the  world.  „ 

You  can  learn  the  science  of  pushing  by  yourself. 
You  will  acquire  it  by  seeing  yourself  in  mind  or 
imagination  as  asserting  yourself  courageously,  fairly, 
honestly,  before  others,  and  making  yourself  agree- 
able to  all.  The  more  you  do  this  in  imagination,  the 
more  will  you  feel  like  doing  it  in  reality.  What 
you  do  in  thought  is  a  reality.  What  you  live  most 
in  thought,  you  make  a  reality.  You  will  find,  after 
a  time  of  such  mental  exercise,  that  you  have  more 
nerve,  more  courage,  more  tact,  more  address,  more 
desire  to  mingle  with  all  sorts  of  people,  to  take  hold 
of  the  world,  and  make  it  give  you  what  rightfully 
belongs  to  you. 

Poverty  comes  largely  of  shrinking  away  from 
people,  and  fear  of  assuming  responsibilities. 

See  yourself  always  in  imagination  as  diffident, 
bashful,  shrinking,  and  by  the  same  law  you  make 
yourself  so.  Reverse  this  process  of  silent  menta] 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


14  THE   LAW   OF   SUCCESS. 

treatment.  See  yourself  courageous.  You  are  al- 
ways growing  up  to  your  highest  ideal  of  yourself, 
and  you  reconstruct  yourself  by  this  process  of  si- 
lent thought.  You  cannot  succeed  and  make  money 
if  you  remain  in  a  corner.  You  cannot  do  business 
with  the  world  entirely  by  letter  or  by  proxy.  You 
must  to  an  extent  show  yourself  to  others.  When 
your  spirit  carries  your  body  before  another  person, 
it  carries  the  instrument  for  enabling  your  spirit  to 
put  out  its  fullest  volume  of  thought-power  on  that 
person. 

Thought  being  substance  or  force,  you  can  pile  up 
in  your  mind  volumes  of  that  force  for  or  against 
you.  To  think  of  nothing  but  difficulties  and  possi- 
ble troubles  in  business,  is  to  set  your  mind  as  the 
magnet  to  attract  only  difficulties,  first  in  thought, 
next  in  substance.  This  becomes  with  many  a  fixed 
habit  hard  to  get  rid  of. 

You  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  a  difficulty 
but  to  set  your  mind  as  a  magnet  in  the  direction  for 
receiving  force,  ideas,  and  plans  for  overcoming  that 
difficulty.  If  you  have  trouble  with  any  person,  and 
are  always  thinking  of  his  injustice  toward  you,  in 
the  mood  of  anger  or  complaint,  you  are  in  thought- 
element  making  over  again  and  again  the  wrangle  or 
battle.  You  can  use  up  in  growling,  scolding,  com- 
plaining, and  grumbling,  be  it  thought  out  silently, 
or  spoken  to  others,  the  same  force  or  thought  which 
would  make  a  plan  to  get  rid  of  the  thing  scolded  or 
grumbled  at.  It  is  on  precisely  the  same  principle 
as  the  strength  with  which  the  mason  builds  his  wall 
can  be  used  in  tearing  it  down,  or  in  flinging  about 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  LAW   OF   SUCCESS.  15 

bricks  at  random.  If  you  will  give  your  body  all  the 
rest  it  needs,  your  mental  force  will  work  far  and 
near  more  powerfully  for  you.  Your  plans  will  be 
deeper,  and,  when  carried  out,  more  productive  of  re- 
sults. If  the  body  is  always  fagged  out,  much  of  tb« 
force  of  that  spirit  must  be  used  up  in  keeping  ita 
hold  on  the  body,  —  in  other  words,  keeping  it  alive. 
It  matters  not  whether  you  tire  yourself  out  volun" 
tarily,  or  are  obliged  to  do  so  to  get  a  living.  The 
result  is  the  same. 

If  you  want  more  time  in  which  so  to  rest,  desire 
and  demand  it  persistently.  An  opportunity  will 
then  at  length  come  to  you  by  which  you  can  earn 
enough  for  your  present  support  without  working 
the  body  at  one  employment  so  many  hours  daily.  It 
will  come  by  that  mysterious  law  and  attractive  force 
which  moves  all  things  to  all  people  according  to  their 
strongest  desires  and  the  persistency  of  such  desire. 

You  can,  through  this  same  power  (persistent  de- 
sire), bring  to  you  an  evil  as  quickly  as  a  good. 
The  thing  you  are  now  strongly  desiring  may  turn 
out  an  evil.  If  you  desire  or  demand  wisdom  to 
know  what  will  do  you  the  most  lasting  good,  you 
will,  by  the  same  law,  bring  to  you  the  capacity  to 
see  what  is  really  the  best  for  you.  Desire  persist- 
ently a  "  clear  head,"  and  a  clear  head  will  come  to 
you.  When  your  opportunit}^  comes,  granting  you 
four  or  five  more  hours  daily  of  leisure,  do  not  pile  on 
yourself  any  extra  effort  for  the  sake  of  the  few  dol- 
lars you  may  get  by  it.  This  opportunity  may  be 
your  first  step  out  into  a  newer  life.  Give  yourself 
leisure.  Don't  be  afraid  of  enjoying  yourself.  Your 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


16  THE  LAW   OF   SUCCESS. 

mind  will  then  breed  plans  for  future  success ;  and  as 
such  plans  come  to  you,  you  will  be  inspired  to  act 
them  out  with  your  body. 

A  steady  situation  and  good  wages  for  life  in  any 
calling  is  not  the  road  to  any  permanent  or  growing 
success.  You  are  then  but  a  screw  in  the  great  busi- 
ness  machine,  and,  when  worn  out,  will  be  mercilessly 
replaced  by  the  newer  screw.  If  in  skill  you  are 
vi  your  business  at  the  top,  and  as  to  wages  near 
the  bottom,  it  is  because,  while  skilled  in  your  trade, 
you  are  not  so  in  getting  your  just  reward  for  that 
skill.  You  must  aspire  to  manage  a  business  founded 
on  your  skill.  You  must  not  be  content  to  be  man- 
aged by  others  who,  taking  advantage  of  your  skill, 
get  your  industry  and  article  before  the  public,  and, 
with  that,  three-fourths  of  the  profits.  You  must  use 
this  your  power  of  thought,  to  get  it  and  yourself 
before  the  public. 

You  must,  to  gain  the  greatest  success,  manage  a 
business,  or  a  department  of  a  business,  and  be  its 
sole  governor  without  interference  or  hinderance 
from  another.  Responsibility  alone  can  bring  out 
your  fullest  power  and  its  attendant  happiness. 

Otherwise  you  will,  as  a  mere  employee,  be  fet- 
tered by  an  employer's  demands,  or  by  conditions 
made  by  others  in  which  you  will  be  obliged  to  work. 
You  will  see  your  best  ideas  imperfectly  carried  out, 
because  you  cannot  fully  control  their  carrying  out 
yourself. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH. 


A  PRINCIPAL  means  for  holding  and  increasing 
both  physical  and  mental  strength  lies  in  the  training 
of  the  mind  and  body  to  do  but  one  thing  at  a  time ; 
in  other  words,  to  put  all  the  thought  necessary  for 
the  performance  of  any  act  in  that  act,  and  to  put 
aside  all  other  thought  whatever  save  what  belongs 
to  that  act. 

The  body  is  but  the  machine  used  by  the  mind. 
If  it  be  weak,  the  power  of  our  thought  may  be 
largely  used  and  almost  uselessly  expended  in  re- 
sisting its  weakness.  The  mind  is  then  the  workman 
endeavoring  to  carry  out  his  design  with  an  imperfect 
tool.  Eventually,  this  defective  tool  may  derange 
and  destroy  entirely  the  workman's  power. 

Strength  of  mind  and  body  is  the  corner-stone  of 
all  enjoyment  and  success.  The  weak  body  enjoys 
little  or  nothing.  Our  bodies  are  reservoirs  of  force. 
Eating  and  sleeping  are  means  for  filling  up  with  that 
force;  in  other  words,  for  filling  up  with  thought. 
When  so  filled  up  we  enjoy  our  walk,  our  business, 
our  effort  of  any  kind.  What  is  most  desirable  for 
all  to  know  is,  how  to  retain  the  most  of  that  force 
during  our  waking  hours  and  if  possible  to  increase 
it ;  because  this  force  has  a  commercial  value  in  dol- 
lars and  cents.  The  weak  and  exhausted  body  is 
neither  the  body  for  "business"  or  pleasure,  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH. 

all  business  is  best  done  when  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
do  it. 

An  old  system  of  philosophy  says,  "What  thou 
doest,  that  do  with  all  thy  might." 

Not  the  spasmodic,  fleeting  might  of  fury  or  anger. 
That  is  not  might  at  all.  That  is  waste  of  strength. 
It  implies  that  every  act  of  our  lives,  from  the  tying 
of  a  shoe-string,  the  forming  of  a  letter,  or  the  sharp- 
ening of  a  pencil,  should  be  done  with  the  might  of 
method, precision,  exactness,  care;  in  brief,  the  might 
of  concentration.  When  a  boy,  I  was  doing  my  first 
day  s  shovelling  in  the  California  gold-diggings.  Ar 
old  miner  said  to  me,  "  Young  man,  you  make  too 
hard  work  of  shovelling:  you  want  to  put  more 
mind  in  that  shovel." 

Pondering  over  this  remark,  I  found  that  shovel- 
ling dirt  needed  co-operation  of  mind  with  muscle, — 
mind  to  give  direction  to  muscle ;  mind  to  place  the 
shovel's  point  where  it  should  scoop  up  most  dirt 
with  least  outlay  of  strength ;  mind  to  give  direc- 
tion to  the  dirt  as  thrown  from  the  shovel;  and 
infinitesimal  portions  of  mind,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
movement  of  every  muscle  brought  into  play  while 
shovelling.  I  found  that -the  more  thought  I  put 
in  the  shovel  the  better  could  I  shovel :  the  less  like 
work  it  became,  the  more  like  play  it  became,  and 
the  longer  my  strength  for  shovelling  lasted.  I 
found  when  my  thought  drifted  on  other  things 
(no  matter  what),  that  soon  the  less  strength  and 
enjoyment  had  I  for  shovelling,  and  the  sooner  it 
became  an  irksome  task. 

Every  thought  is  a  thing  and  a  force  made  of  invisi- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR   STRENGTH.  3 

ble  substance.  Thinking  uses  up  a  certain  amount 
of  the  body's  force.  You  are  working  and  using 
up  this  force  even  in  what  you  call  your  "idlest 
moments."  If,  while  doing  one  act  with  the  body, 
you  are  thinking  of  something  else,  you  are  wasting 
your  strength  and  thought.  Before  you  pick  up  a 
pin  from  the  floor,  you  send  from  you,  in  thought, 
substance,  —  a  plan  for  picking  up  that  pin.  That 
plan  is  force.  You  direct  and  use  that  force  on  your 
body,  the  instrument  for  picking  up  the  pin.  You 
should  not  mix  that  plan  with  one  for  doing  any 
thing  else  while  the  body  is  picking  up  that  pin. 
If  you  do,  you  are  sending  your  force  —  or  trying  to 
—  in  two  directions  at  once.  You  mingle  and  con- 
fuse the  plan  and  force  for  one  act  with  the  plan 
and  force  for  another. 

Every  impatient  act  and  thought,  no  matter  how 
small,  costs  us  an  unprofitable  outlay  of  force.  If, 
sometime,  when  you  are  tired  with  walking,  —  that  is, 
walking  with  your  legs,  while  your  brain  has  been 
working,  wool-gathering,  or  worrying,  planning,  and 
scheming,  —  you  will  drive  all  such  thought  away  and 
put  all  your  mind,  attention,  and  force  in  your  limbs 
and  feet,  you  may  be  surprised  to  find  your  strength 
return  and  your  fatigue  leave  you.  Because  every 
physical  act  costs  a  thought,  and  every  thought  costs 
a  certain  outlay  of  force.  Every  step  you  take  in- 
volves a  plan  to  give  that  step  direction.  Plan 
involves  outlay  of  thought.  Thought  means  outlay 
of  force.  If  you  think  of  other  things  while  walking, 
you  are  expending  force  in  two  directions  at  once. 

Do  you  think  that  an  acrobat  could  so  readily  as- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH. 

cend  a  rope  hand  over  hand,  did  he  not  put  his  whole 
mind  as  well  as  strength  on  the  act?  or  that  an 
orator  could  thrill  an  audience,  were  he  obliged  to 
turn  a  grindstone  while  speaking  ?  Yet  in  so  many 
of  our  acts  do  we  not  unconsciously  burthen  our- 
selves by  turning  that  grindstone,  in  thinking  and 
planning  one  thing,  while  doing,  or  trying  to  do,  an- 
other ?  If  you  are  going  up  a  hill  and  are  continually 
looking  with  impatience  toward  the  top,  and  wishing 
you  were  at  the  top,  you  will  soon  become  tired.  If 
you  are  near  that  hilltop  in  imagination,  while  your 
body  is  near  the  bottom,  you  are  sending  your  force 
of  thought  to  the  top  of  the  hill,  leaving  only  enough 
in  the  poor,  outraged  body  to  drag  it  wearily  upward. 
If  you  hold  all  that  force  to  that  body,  and  concen- 
trate it  on  each  step,  you  ascend  far  easier ;  because 
your  power  is  then  concentrated  in  those  parts  of 
your  body  (your  legs)  that  most  need  that  power. 
When  you  concentrate  all  your  strength  in  each  step, 
you  make  each  step  easier,  you  get  a  certain  pleasure 
out  of  each  step,  and  you  forget  also  your  trouble,  — 
that  being  the  impatient  desire  of  being  at  the  hill- 
top. 

This  law  holds  good  in  every  act  of  life.  Do  you 
not  wish  you  could  forget  your  trouble,  your  disap- 
pointment, your  sense  of  loss,  through  concentrating 
all  your  thought  on  something  else,  and  becoming  so 
absorbed  in  it,  and  enjoying  it,  as  to  forget  all  things 
else? 

This  is  a  possibility  of  mind,  and  is  one  well 
worth  the  striving  for.  It  can  be  attained  by  the 
practice  of  concentration ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  put- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH.  5 

ting  of  one's  whole  mind  on  the  doing  of  so-called 
trivial  things,  and  every  second  expended  in  such 
practice  brings  one  nearer  the  result  desired.  Each 
effort  brings  us  its  atom  of  gain  in  increased  power 
for  putting  either  our  whole  volume  of  power  or  only 
the  amount  of  power  necessary  to  be  used  for  doing 
the  act  in  hand.  This  atom  of  increased  power  for 
concentration  is  never  lost.  You  need  this  at  every 
moment  in  your  daily  business.  You  need  it  to  keep 
your  mind  from  straying  off  on  other  things  while' 
you  are  driving  bargains. 

How  long  can  we  concentrate  our  whole  thought 
on  any  one  act  at  once  ?  Can  you  tie  three  knots  in 
a  string  and  put  your  whole  thought  in  the  tying  of 
those  three  knots,  letting  no  other  thought  intervene? 
You  say,  perhaps,  "  I  can  tie  a  knot  just  as  well,  and 
think  of  many  other  things."  Possibly  you  can ;  but 
can  you  tie  those  three  knots  and  think  only  of  knots  ? 
Or  has  your  mind  so  fallen  into  the  habit  of  straying 
off  and  over  a  dozen  different  matters  a  minute  that 
you  have  lost  the  power  of  focusing  it  on  any  single 
thing  for  ten  consecutive  seconds  ? 

Do  not  call  this  trivial.  Train  for  concentrative 
power  in  the  doing  of  any  one  act  and  you  train  to 
throw  your  whole  mind,  thought,  and  force  on  all 
acts.  Train  to  put  your  whole  thought  on  each  act, 
and  prevent  that  thought  from  straying  off  on  any 
thing  else,  and  we  are  training  to  throw  the  sam<* 
full  current  of  power  in  our  speech  when  we  talk, 
in  our  skill  when  we  work  with  tools,  in  our  voice 
when  we  sing,  in  our  fingers  when  any  dexterous- 
work  is  required  of  them,  and  in  any  organ  or  funo- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  HOW  TO  KEEP   YOUR  STRENGTH. 

tion  of  our  being  that  we  desire  for  the  time  to 
-exercise. 

Perhaps  you  think,  "  Well  that's  only  another  way 
of  saying  '  Be  careful.' "  True.  Yet  many  may  not 
know  how  to  be  careful  or  precise.  Do  we  not  see 
people  every  day  rushing  their  legs  along  the  street 
with  the  least  possible  amount  of  strength,  while 
their  minds  are  planning,  wishing,  working,  hurry- 
ing far  ahead  of  them?  Yet  these  people  wonder 
why  they  forget,  wonder  why  they  make  so  many 
mistakes,  wonder  why  so  many  of  the  small  details 
of  their  business  are  irksome:  or  they  go  on  being 
so  annoyed,  and  never  get  sufficiently  awakened  as 
to  wonder. 

Is  not  this  practical  philosophy  and  practical  talk? 
To-morrow,  maybe,  you  are  to  have  a  trying  inter- 
view on  a  matter  vital  to  your  interests,  with  a 
sharp,  cunning,  business-man,  who  is  strong  in  will 
as  well  as  knowledge,  power,  ways,  and  means  to 
overreach  you,  to  muddle  your  brains,  to  trick  you, 
to  frighten  you.  Do  you  not  need  every  available 
atom  of  your  force  to  cope  with  him  ? 

When  we  cultivate  this  power  of  focusing  all  our 
force  on  any  single  act,  we  are  cultivating  also  the 
power  of  throwing  our  whole  mind  from  one  subject 
to  another.  That  means,  also,  that  we  can  throw  our 
whole  mind  out  of  a  trouble  into  what  may  prove  a 
delight,  and  forget  a  grief  in  a  happy  work.  Grief, 
loss,  disappointment,  and  discouragement  injure  and 
kill  many  people. 

We  may  say  to  one  so  afflicted,  "You  shouldn't 
think  of  this,  that,  or  the  other."  But  do  we  tell 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH.  ? 

them  by  what  means  they  may  turn  their  minds 
away  from  their  trouble? 

Children  of  weak  minds,  and  idiots,  are  deficient  in 
power  of  grip  with  their  hands.  In  a  certain  train- 
ing-school, such  children  are  made  first  to  grasp  a  bar 
above  their  heads  with  both  hands,  and  draw  them- 
selves upward  on  their  backs  along  a  steeply  inclined 
plane.  It  requires  often  many  weeks  of  such  exer- 
cise before  they  can  do  this.  The  weak  mind  has 
no  power  to  throw  all  its  thought  or  force  on  the 
hand,  and  do  one  act  at  a  time.  This  lack  may  hold 
good  to  a  great  or  lesser  extent  with  all  grades  of 
weak  minds. 

Every  impatient  act,  no  matter  how  small,  costs 
us  an  unprofitable  outlay  of  physical  and  mental 
strength,  —  as  when  you  tug  and  pull  at  the  hard 
knot;  or  when  you  throw  yourself  with  all  your 
might  of  fury  against  the  door  that's  locked,  and  try 
to  wrench  the  knob  off  because  it  won't  open  readily. 

If  I  turn  a  grindstone  with  one  arm,  I  exhaust  the 
force,  after  a  time,  in  a  set  of  muscles.  If  I  stop 
turning  it  with  the  arm  and  turn  it  by  a  treadle,  by 
foot,  I  rest  the  arm-muscles.  Then  they  fill  up  again 
with  force,  and  I  can,  without  fatigue,  turn  the  st<?ne 
with  that  arm  again  for  a  period.  A  similar  law  pre- 
vails in  all  manner  of  mental  effort.  Say  we  are  ab- 
sorbed in  some  particular  subject,  plan,  scheme, 
purpose :  we  dwell  on  it  continually ;  we  cannot  stop 
thinking  of  it.  Do  we  thereby  always  make  it 
clearer  to  ourselves  ?  Do  we  not  thereby  often  get 
muddled  in  thought?  Are  we  not  turning  that 
grindstone  with  our  mental  muscle  (the  brain)  until 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR   STRENGTH. 

it  is  exhausted,  and  only  the  same  old  set  of  thoughts 
relative  to  the  subject  occur  again  and  again  ? 

What  is  needed?  Rest  for  this  brain  muscle. 
How  ?  In  one  way,  —  by  turning  the  whole  force  on 
something  else  for  a  time.  Did  you  ever  notice  that 
if,  when  very  much  fatigued,  you  can  sit  down  and 
have  an  hour's  chat  with  an  agreeable  companion, 
you  are  rested ;  and  more  rested,  also,  than  if  you  had 
remained  alone,  though  having  no  effort  of  any  kind 
to  make?  That  talk  rested  and  recuperated  you. 
Yet  it  was  an  outlay  of  force.  All  your  thought 
(your  force)  was,  for  the  time  being,  poured  into  the 
channel  of  that  conversation.  That  conversation 
switched  you  off,  as  it  were,  from  one  track  of 
thought  into  another.  Our  fearfully  and  wonder- 
fully made  organizations  are  self-recuperative  and 
self-repairers.  Give  any  of  its  departments  rest 
after  being  used,  and  it  sets  immediately  about  the 
work  of  reconstruction,  and  that  with  finer  and  better 
material  than  before.  The  conversation  proved  the 
means  of  switching  us  on  the  other  track  of  thought. 
Can  we  do  the  same  occasionally  without  the  help  of 
another  ?  Can  we  so  switch  off  our  whole  train  of 
thought  from  one  subject  to  another?  from  one  act 
to  another?  from  considering  how  our  house  shall 
be  built,  to  the  proper  sharpening  of  a  lead  pencil, 
without  allowing  a  thought  of  the  house  to  come  in 
while  sharpening  that  pencil?  Can  we  sharpen  a 
pencil  for  sixty  consecutive  seconds  without  think- 
ing of  something  else?  If  we  can,  we  have  made 
great  advance  in  concentrative  power  in  doing  what 
we  have  to  do  with  all  the  might  necessary,  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH.  9 

reserving  whatever  of  our  might  is  not  needed  in 
the  act  for  something  else.  If  we  can  do  this,  we 
are  possessed  of  a  share  of  the  greatest  power  in  the 
universe,  not  only  in  making  ourselves  more  and 
more  happy,  but  also  power  for  doing  more  and  more 
of  whatever  we  have  to  do,  and  doing  it  better  and 
better.  We  then  rule  our  minds.  No  one  really 
rules  until  he  or  she  rules  him  or  herself.. 

If  in  any  condition  of  mental  distress  you  can  turn, 
if  but  for  a  second,  your  whole  thought  on  the  stick- 
ing of  a  pin  in  your  dress,  you  are  for  that  second 
relieved  of  your  trouble ;  you  have  in  that  second 
gained  an  atom  of  concentrative  power. 

We  are  then  on  the  road  to  absolute  rule  over  our 
minds  and  moods.  At  present,  with  many,  it  is  the 
mood  that  rules  the  mind.  We  are  as  weathercocks,  — 
turned  by  every  passing  breeze.  We  are  not  sure  of 
a  good-humored,  cheerful  condition  of  mind  for  an 
hour.  It  may  be  turned  any  moment  into  a  state  of 
discouragement,  despondency,  or  irritation,  by  an 
event,  an  obnoxious  individual,  an  unkind  word 
from  a  friend,  a  message  from  an  enemy,  or  even 
a  passing  thought.  Thousands  on  thousands  would 
rejoice  to  be  able  to  forget  what  is  disagreeable. 
Dwelling  on  it,  be  it  trouble  of  debt,  trouble  of 
personal  animosity,  trouble  of  the  affections,  trouble 
of  any  kind,  weakens  body  and  mind,  and  weakens 
the  person's  power  to  resist  the  trouble.  Troubled 
thought  is  as  muddy  water.  What  you  need  is  the 
power  to  turn  this  muddy  water  off  and  let  clear 
water  in.  Troubled  thought,  mind  racked  with  sus- 
pense and  anxiety,  literally  bleeds  you  to  death  of 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUR  STRENGTH. 

your  strength.  To  be  able  to  forget,  to  turn  thought 
into  some  more  cheerful  mood,  is  to  stop  this  bleeding 
and  get  strength  again. 

To  sum  up  the  advantages  derived  from  fixing  our 
whole  force  on  the  doing  of  a  single  act :  — 

First,  when  a  nail  is  driven  with  all  the  might  of 
care,  exactness,  and  precision,  it  is  pretty  sure  to 
be  well  driven. 

Secondly,  in  driving  it,  you  have  rested  some,  or 
many  other  departments,  and  are  thereby  the  better 
prepared  to  exercise  them.  You  can  the  better  saw 
a  board  in  two,  if  you  have  not  been  thinking  board 
while  driving  the  nail.  Or  if,  while  sewing,  you  have 
had  your  mind  on  that  sewing,  you  will  the  better 
cut  your  cloth  when  the  time  comes  to  put  your 
mind  on  your  scissors.  But  to  sew  and  "think 
scissors,"  or  to  cut  cloth  and  "think  sew,"  is  to  put 
one  on  the  road  to  blunders  and  misfits. 

Thirdly,  focusing  all  the  needed  strength  for  driv- 
ing the  nail,  pushing  the  needle,  or  handling  the 
scissors,  has,  if  so  employed  but  for  ten  seconds,  been 
giving  you  increased  training  in  the  power  of  con- 
centration, and  added,  also,  its  mite  to  your  stock  of 
that  quality. 

Fourthly,  it  has  added  to  your  capacity  for  get- 
ting pleasure  out  of  the  doing  of  any  and  all  things, 
whether  such  doing  be  of  mind  or  body.  Putting 
mind  in  muscle,  brings  pleasure  from  the  exercise  of 
muscle.  It  is  the  secret  of  all  grace  in  motion,  all 
skill  and  dexterity  in  action.  The  most  graceful 
dancer  is  he  or  she  who  puts  so  much  thought  in 
the  muscles  to  be  used  as  to  forget  all  things  else, 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


11 

and  so  become  entirely  absorbed  in  the  act  and 
the  expression  of  sentiment  or  emotion  involved 
in  it. 

We  can,  by  such  exercise,  add  continually  to  our 
mental  power,  our  executive  power,  our  will  power,, 
our  mental  clearness.  We  speak  of  universal  love 
as  the  consummation  of  happiness.  Must  not  uni- 
versal love  extend  to  things  and  acts  as  well  as  per- 
sons ?  and  if  there  is  any  act  tending  to  our,  or  others, 
real  good  that  is  irksome  to  me  in  the  doing,  am  I 
not,  by  so  much,  out  of  the  domain  of  universal  love  ? 

We  are  fighting  sin :  but  we  can  sin,  too,  when  we 
fight.  We  can  sin  against  body  and  mind,  even  when 
all  their  efforts  are  for  the  right.  We  can  abuse 
body  and  brain,  even  in  the  performance  of  a  benevo- 
lent act,  just  as  much  as  in  the  performance  of  a. 
wicked  one ;  and  the  penalty  is  the  same.  Perhaps 
you  say,  "  But  I  can't  carry  out  this  idea  in  doing 
every  thing,  I  have  so  many  things  at  home  to  hurry 
me."  This  makes  no  difference  as  to  results.  The 
laws  of  your  being  and  mine,  have  no  regard  to  the 
number  of  things  we  have  to  hurry  us. 

But  how  shall  we  gain  the  power  of  concentrating 
thought  on  any  and  every  act,  if  through  years  of 
unconscious  damaging  habit  in  the  other  direction, 
we  seem  to  have  lost  it  entirely. 

Pray  for  it,  wish  for  it,  demand  it.  Concentration, 
is  a  quality :  it  is  in  the  elements.  Open  your  mind 
to  it,  and  it  will  by  degrees  come  to  you.  Think  at 
times,  or  at  regular  intervals,  if  so  you  desire,  on  the 
word  "  Concentration."  A  word  is  the  symbol  of  a 
thought.  So  placing,  if  but  for  a  few  seconds,  your 

Thoughts  are  Tmna&. 


12       HOW  TO  KEEP  YOUK  STRENGTH. 

mind  on  that  thought,  and  you  connect  yourself  with 
the  current  of  concentrative  or  constructive  thought 
in  the  universe ;  and  as  so  you  connect  yourself  with 
:it,  you  draw  the  desired  element  from  it.  Every  atom 
or  accretion  so  drawn,  is  an  additional  stone  in  the 
solid  foundation  you  are  laying.  It  can  never  be 
lost,  though  it  may  require  time  ere  that  foundation 
is  apparent  to  you. 

"  Ask  and  ye  shall  receive,  knock  and  it  shall  be 
opened  unto  you." 

You  can  ask  when  behind  the  counter.  You  can 
knock  when  walking  on  the  street.  You  can  make 
a  genuine  and  profitable  demand  in  a  second ;  and 
seconds  so  employed  are  most  profitable.  If  they 
do  not  bring  the  whole  diamond,  they  bring  diamond- 
dust  ;  and  it  is  such  dust  that  builds  up  the  gem 
within. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


CONSIDER  THE   LILIES. 


I  WANT  to  preach  a  sermon  to  everybody,  from  the 
text,  "Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,"  because  it  has 
nothing  in  it  disagreeable  to  anybody.  It  is  not  a 
sermon  of  threat  or  of  warning,  but  of  hope.  The 
world  to-day  needs  more  hope.  We  are  a  hopeless 
lot.  We  are  so,  principally,  because  in  so  much  of  the 
past  preaching  we  have  been  told  how  bad  we  are, 
and  what  would  happen  to  us  if  we  kept  on  in  our 
badness.  We  are  so  little  told  that  we  have  in  us 
lots  of  goodness  and  power.  We  have  been  bad, 
largely  because  so  many  ministers  have  thought  badly 
of  us,  and  have  so  made  us  think  badly  of  ourselves. 
People  who  think  badly  of  themselves  are  pretty 
sure  to  do  badly.  Scripture  remarks,  "  As  a  man  or 
woman  thinketh,  so  is  he  or  she."  It  is  when  a  man 
thinks  poorly  of  himself,  that  he  goes  off  and  gets 
drunk,  or  does  some  mean  thing.  The  pride  that 
makes  a  man  value  himself  is  the  pride  that  keeps 
from  mean  and  degraded  acts.  Our  race  is  now  on 
the  point  of  being  woke  up  to  the  fact  that  every  man 
and  every  woman  are  the  possessors  of  more  powers 
than  now  they  dream  of,  and  that,  when  they  know 
how  to  use  these  powers,  they  will  steer  out  of  all  evil 
into  good.  A  lily,  or  any  other  plant  or  flower,  grows 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  CONSIDER   THE  LILIES. 

and  beautifies  itself  under  the  laws  of  the  universe 
just  as  much  as  man  or  woman ;  and  a  man  or  woman 
grows  and  has  grown  all  through  the  countless  ages 
under  such  laws,  just  as  much  as  the  lily. 

It  is  a  grand  mistake, —  that  of  supposing  that  any 
man  or  woman  of  ordinary  sense  is  the  result  of  this 
one  short  life  we  live  here.  We  have  all  lived,  pos- 
sibljr,  in  various  forms, — as  animal,  bird,  snake,  insect, 
plant.  Our  starting  point  of  matter  in  existence  has 
been  dragged  on  the  sea's  bottom,  embedded  in  ice- 
bergs, and  vomited  out  of  volcanoes  amid  fire,  smoke, 
and  ashes.  It  has  been  tossed  about  on  the  ocean, 
and  lain,  maybe,  for  centuries  on  centuries  embedded 
in  the  heart  of  some  post-pliocene  mountain.  We've 
crept  up  and  crept  up,  sometimes  in  one  form,  some- 
times in  another,  always  gaining  something  more  in 
intelligence,  something  more  of  force,  by  each  change, 
until  at  last  here  we  are,  and  we  haven't  got  far  along 
yet.  The  lily  has  a  life  of  its  own  and  an  intelligence 
of  its  own.  You  may  differ  with  me  here,  and  I  ex- 
pect you  to  do  so.  Most  people  think  intelligence  is 
confined  to  human  beings,  and  every  thing  that  looks 
like  it  in  an  animal  or  plant  to  be  "instinct,"  or  some 
other  name  for  nothing  in  particular.  I  believe  that 
intelligence  is  as  common  as  air,  only  in  some  forms 
of  life  there's  a  great  deal  more  of  it  than  in  others. 
Man,  of  all  the  growths  of  the  earth,  has  the  most  of 
this  article  packed  away  in  him.  That  is,  he  has  the 
most  of  the  article  we  call  "  thought  "  packed  away 
in  him.  Thought  is  a  highly  rarefied  and  powerful 
substance,  unseen  and  unfelt  by  the  outer  sense.  The 
more  of  this  article  possessed  by  any  one,  the  more 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


CONSIDER   THE  LILIES.  3 

there  is  of  life  in  him  or  her.  Thinking  people  live 
the  longest.  I  don't  mean  by  thinking  people,  liter- 
ary people  or  bookworms.  Of  the  worms,  many  of 
them  don't  think  at  all.  They  live  on  the  thoughts 
of  others.  By  thinking  people,  I  mean  those  who  are 
always  getting  fresh,  original  thought  out  of  them- 
selves. That  kind  of  life  or  thought  (these  being 
convertible  terms)  renews  body  and  mind. 

The  lily  has  intelligence  enough  to  start  itself  out 
of  the  seed  when  put  in  the  ground  and  called  upon 
by  the  sun  to  do  so,  as  a  man  or  woman  has  the  same 
intelligence  (or  should  have)  to  go  out  in  the  sun  on 
a  pleasant  day,  and  absorb  the  life  and  power  sent  in 
by  the  sun.  Those  who  do  not,  who  remain  five- 
sixths  of  the  time  in-doors,  are,  as  a  result,  weak  and 
bleached  like  potato-vines  growing  in  a  cellar.  The 
lily  has  also  sense  enough  to  grow  in  the  sun.  If 
you  put  it  in  a  room,  it  will  grow  toward  that  part  of 
the  room  where  the  light  enters.  That  is  simply 
because  it  wants  the  light :  it  knows  it  needs  it,  and 
it  goes  after  what  it  needs,  because  it  knows,  or 
rather  feels,  that  the  light  is  good  for  it.  We  go 
after  food  for  precisely  the  same  reason,  only  we  call 
our  action  the  result  of  intelligence.  The  plant's 
action  we  call  instinct.  A  man  goes  to  the  fire  to 
warm  himself  because  he  feels  the  fire  to  be  good  for 
him.  It  is  pleasant  to  feel  it  on  a  cold  day.  A  cat 
lies  in  the  sun  for  the  same  reason.  But  the  man 
calls  his  feeling  "  intelligence,"  and  the  cat's  or 
plant's  feeling  "instinct."  Where's  the  difference? 
Where  the  lily  gets  ahead  of  us  with  its  limited  life 
and  intelligence  is,  that  it  does  not  concern  itself  or 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  CONSIDER  THE  LILIES. 

worry  about  the  morrow.  It  toils  not.  It  takes  of 
water,  air,  sunshine,  and  whatever  of  the  elements 
are  in  these,  just  what  it  needs  for  the  minute,  the 
hour,  or  the  day,  just  so  much  and  no  more.  It 
doesn't  go  to  work  laying  up  an  extra  supply  of 
water  or  air  or  sunshine  for  to-morrow,  fearing  it 
may  be  out  of  these  supplies,  as  we  toil  and  spin  in 
laying  up  extra  dollars  against  the  poverty  we  fear. 
If  it  did,  it  would  use  up  all  its  force  in  heaping  up 
these  extra  supplies,  and  would  never  become  a  per- 
fect lily  to  outshine  Solomon  in  all  his  glory. 

The  robes  of  a  lily,  a  rose,  or  any  blossom  are  in 
beauty,  fine  texture,  and  delicacy  beyond  any  thing 
that  human  art  can  produce.  It  is  a  living  beauty 
while  it  does  live.  Our  fine  laces  and  silks  are  rela- 
tively of  a  dead  beauty.  They  commence  decaying 
or  fading  just  as  soon  as  finished.  Up  to  its  highest 
blossoming  point  the  lily's  beauty  is  always  increas- 
ing. A  cloth  that  would  shine  with  a  lustre  to-mor- 
row more  vividly  than  to-day,  and  that  would  show 
similar  variations  of  texture,  would  be  eagerly  sought 
for,  even  though  it  lasted  but  a  fortnight,  and  the 
extravagant  people,  who  really  keep  the  mills  going 
and  the  money  in  circulation,  and  pay  the  best  for 
the  best  things,  would  have  it.  If  the  lily,  with  its 
limited  intelligence,  worried  and  fretted  for  fear  the 
sun  might  not  shine  to-morrow,  or  that  there  might 
be  no  water,  or  money  in  the  house,  or  potatoes  in 
the  cellar,  it  would  surely  become  a  cast-down,  for- 
lorn-looking flower.  It  would  expend  the  strength 
in  worrying  that  it  needs  for  gathering  and  assimilat- 
ing to  itself  the  elements  it  requires  to  become  a  lily. 


Thoughts  are  Things, 


CONSIDER   THE  LILIES.  5> 

If  any  degree  of  mind  or  intelligence  so  worries  and 
takes  on  itself  burdens  beyond  the  needs  of  the  day, 
it  will  cut  itself  off  from  the  power  of  attracting  to 
itself  what  it  does  really  need  for  the  growth,  the 
health,  the  strength,  and  the  prosperity  of  to-day.  I 
mean  here  just  what  I  say,  and  that  in  no  metaphori- 
cal, allegorical,  or  figurative  sense.  I  mean,  that  as 
the  lily's  limited  intelligence,  or  mind  force  if  you 
please,  when  not  burdened  or  taxed  about  something 
that  concerns  to-morrow,  draws  to  itself  the  elements 
that  it  needs  for  to-day,  exactly  so  would  human 
minds  unburdened  with  woe  or  anxiety  attract  to 
themselves  all  that  was  needed  for  the  hour.  The 
needs  of  the  hour  are  the  only  real  needs.  You  need 
your  breakfast  in  the  morning;  you  do  not  need 
to-morrow  morning's  breakfast.  Yet  nine  out  of  ten 
among  us  are  directly  or  indirectly  worrying  in  some 
way  about  to-morrow  morning's  breakfast,  and  so- 
subtracting  from  ourselves  more  or  less  of  the 
strength  necessary  to  enjoy,  digest,  and  assimilate 
this  morning's  breakfast. 

Exactly  as  the  unburdened,  unfretted,  unworried 
lily  attracts  power  to  grow  and  clothe  itself  with 
beauty  from  the  elements  about  it,  exactly  so  does 
the  unworried,  unfretted  human  mind  attract  to  it- 
self a  thousand  times  more  of  what  is  necessary  to 
carry  out  its  plans  and  relieve  its  happiness.  You 
lose  that  power  the  moment  you  commence  to  fret. 
I  mean,  here,  power  to  carry  on  any  kind  of  busi- 
ness, from  preaching  up  to  street-sweeping.  Every 
man  of  business  knows  that  he  is  in  the  best  condi- 
tion to  do  business  when  his  mind  can  fix  itself  on 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  CONSIDER   THE  LILIES. 

the  one  plan,  and  shut  out  every  thing  else.  Every 
artist  knows  that  he  does  his  best  work  when  his 
mind  is  wholly  fixed,  concentrated,  and  absorbed  in 
the  work  of  the  minute.  Because  then  it  is  able  to 
use  all  its  power,  and,  what  is  more,  it  is  drawing  then 
to  itself  more  of  power,  and  what  is  ever  so  attracting 
it  is  fastening  to  itself  forever.  I  hear  you  say,  "  I 
can't  help  worrying.  Times  are  hard,  wages  low, 
living  high ;  the  family's  large,  they  must  be  housed, 
bed  and  clothed,  and  this  is  on  my  mind  day  and 
night.  You  talk  of  not  worrying  under  such  circum- 
stances. It's  all  nonsense."  You  see,  my  friend,  I 
have  tried  to  give  you  the  full  force  of  your  objec- 
tion. If  you  want  more,  you  may  call  me  hard  names 
in  addition.  It  is  all  nonsense,  too,  to  say  you  can't 
stop  worrying,  at  least  for  the  present.  But  that 
makes  no  difference  as  to  the  result, —  the  loss  of  power 
through  fretting,  the  actual  damage  to  health,  the 
weakening  of  mind  through  worry,  the  aging  of  the 
body,  and,  worse  than  all,  the  loss  or  cutting-off  from 
yourself  of  the  mind's  attractive  power,  which,  if 
allowed  free  operation  like  the  lily's,  would  give  you 
all  that  you  can  enjoy  for  the  day,  because  you  can 
enjoy  but  just  so  much  for  the  day,  though  you  have, 
or  think  you  have,  ten  thousand  times  more.  A  man 
can  eat  and  enjoy  but  one  dinner  at  a  time,  though 
he  has  money  enough  to  buy  a  thousand. 

If  you  are  in  a  crowd  rushing  in  a  panic  you  must 
go  with  the  rest  and  perhaps  be  crushed.  Life  as 
now  lived  by  thousands  is  as  a  crowd  panic-stricken 
by  fear  of  coming  to  want,  or  fear  of  something  or 
other.  Any  fear  from  any  cause  brings  loss  of  power. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


CONSIDER   THE  LILIES.  7 

I  don't  say  that  people  ought  to  stop  worrying.  There 
is  no  such  word  as  "  ought "  in  my  dictionary.  Peo- 
ple can't  help  worrying.  The  habit  is  born  with  us. 
Our  ancestors  for  generations  have  worried  before 
us.  But  that  makes  no  difference  as  to  the  destruc- 
tive results  of  "taking  thought  for  the  morrow." 
The  law  involved  goes  on  working.  It  is  merciless 
in  its  working.  It  is  as  certain  to  run  over  and  crush 
you  if  you  get  in  its  way,  as  is  the  locomotive  if  you 
step  before  it  on  the  track.  The  best  way  is  to  take 
advantage  of  the  law,  and  get  on  the  right  side  of  it. 
How?  Think  hopeful  things  instead  of  hopeless 
things.  Think  success  instead  of  failure.  Why,  the 
habit  of  thinking  hopeless,  disagreeable  things  is  so 
confirmed  up  here  in  New  England,  that  if  you  re- 
mark, "  Its  a  fine  day,"  half  of  these  grouty,  croaking 
old  shellbacks  will  growl,  "Yes,  but  it  is  one  of 
your  —  weather  breeders."  Just  so  sure  as  the  uni- 
verse is  governed  by  fixed  and  immutable  law,  just 
so  sure  will  that  law  be  found  to  read,  "  If  you  think 
bright  things,  you  attract  bright  things  to  you.  If 
you  think  dark  things,  you  cut  off  the  invisible  wires 
with  the  bright  things,  and  you  make  instantaneous 
connection  with  the  '  ground  circuit '  attracting  dark 
things."  Perhaps  you  say  this  is  simple  or  childish. 
Now,  what  is  simple  in  this  universe  ?  The  sprout- 
ing of  a  seed  is  called  by  some  a  simple  affair.  But 
nobody  knows  the  real  cause  of  its  sprouting.  It  is 
only  known,  if  you  put  it  in  the  ground,  where  it 
can  have  a  certain  amount  of  the  sun's  warmth  and 
some  moisture,  it  will  sprout.  The  rising  and  falling 
of  a  tea-kettle's  cover  over  the  fire  gave  Watts  his 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  CONSIDER   THE  LILIES. 

first  idea  of  the  mighty  force  of  steam.  That  is,  he 
got  there  his  first  hint  of  the  power  in  steam,  or 
rather  behind  steam.  That  is  heat.  But  then  there 
is  a  power  behind  heat.  What's  that  ?  Don't  know. 
Simplicity,  indeed !  What  in  the  world  is  there  so 
simple  ? 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART  OF  STUDY. 


THEEE  is  an  art  of  study.  We  were  told  in 
youth  to  study.  We  were  never  told  properly  how 
to  study,  or,  in  other  words,  how  to  get  ideas.  Com- 
mitting to  memory  words,  sentences,  and  rules,  is  not 
getting  ideas.  It  is  simply  memorizing.  It  is  sim- 
ply using,  exercising,  and  training  that  part  of  the 
mind  which  learns  to  remember  sounds.  If  you 
commit  to  memory  a  great  many  words  and  sentences, 
you  are  simply  overstraining  a  part  or  function  of 
your  mind.  You  are  putting  on  it  a  burden  to  carry. 
As,  if  you  gave  every  tack  in  your  carpet  a  name,  and 
thought  it  your  duty  to  remember  every  tack  by  its 
name,  would  you  have  time  or  strength  to  think  of 
much  else  ? 

Words  are  not  ideas.  They  are  only  the  signs  by 
means  of  which,  through  the  senses  of  sight  or  sound, 
a  printed  word  or  a  spoken  word  may  represent  an 
idea  to  a  mind.  A  word  or  sentence  full  of  meaning 
or  thought  to  one  person  may  mean  nothing  to 
another. 

The  more  that  is  committed  to  memory,  the  greater 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  THE  ART   OF   STUDY. 

the  burden  placed  on  the  department  of  memory. 
Hew  many  things  of  the  hour  can  you  easily  recollect 
ongoing  out  to  the  day's  business?  A  dozen  matters 
involving  household  cares,  mixed  with  your  own  busi- 
ness, with  strict  injunctions  from  Mrs.  A.  "not  to 
forget  them,"  is  a  load  to  carry.  It  frets,  perplexes, 
and  confuses  you.  So  are  children  treated  in  our 
so-called  modern  system  of  education.  They  are 
burdened  with  a  thousand  "facts,"  which  they  are 
told  "may  be  useful  for  them  to  know."  This  is 
like  teaching  you  to  shoot  by  strapping  a  load  of 
rifles  on  your  back.  You  may  carry  the  rifles  all 
your  life  without  becoming  a  marksman. 

The  memory  is  useful  only  to  hold  what  is  grasped 
by  the  spirit.  No  amount  of  "  book-learning  "  can 
teach  a  man  to  sail  a  boat  well.  He  MUST  educate 
himself.  When  he  learns,  through  practice  and  many 
failures,  that  the  rudder  must  be  kept  in  a  certain 
position  to  counteract  the  force  of  the  wind  against 
the  sail,  his  memory  at  last  holds  what  such  practice 
has  taught  him.  Committing  all  the  proper  direc- 
tions to  memory,  will  not  help  him  a  particle.  On 
the  contrary,  if  he  endeavors,  while  learning  this  art, 
to  recollect  the  directions,  his  mind  and  strength  are 
put  upon  a  sentence  instead  of  the  business  in  hand, 
and  his  learning  will  be  retarded  instead  of  advanced. 
The  remembrance  of  what  memory  holds  through 
exercise  teaches  people  how  to  drive,  to  shoot,  to 
row,  to  swim,  to  skate,  to  dance,  to  paint,  to  carve, 
to  weave,  to  sew,  to  do  all  things.  But  nothing  is 
learned  when  you  are  taught  rules  before  practice. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OP   STUDY.  3 

Did  you  learn  to  dance  by  first  committing  to  mem- 
ory the  rules  for  the  guidance  of  your  steps,  and  try- 
ing to  remember  and  follow  them  ?  No,  you  received 
first  the  idea  from  some  one  who  could  dance.  You 
absorbed  that  idea  or  thought.  Then,  once  having 
the  thought,  your  mind,  your  invisible  self,  taught  by 
degrees  the  body  to  move  in  accordance  with  the 
plan  in  the  mind. 

Every  person,  to  learn  quickly,  must  learn  to  throw 
himself  in  a  certain  mood  of  mind.  That  is  the  mood 
of  serenity  and  repose.  It  is  exactly  the  opposite 
to  the  mood  in  which  children  often  "  study  "  their 
lessons.  To  "study"  hard,  or  to  "study"  in  a 
hurry,  is  a  vain  attempt  to  force  memory  to  do  a 
certain  work  in  a  certain  time. 

If  you  would  learn  any  art,  learn  it  in  your 
own  way.  Learn  in  the  manner  your  inspiration 
suggests  to  you.  Don't  mind  what  is  said  to  you 
about  the  necessity  of  being  "  well  grounded "  in 
certain  rules  which  must  be  taught  you  by  others. 
It  is  true  that  you  must  so  be  "well  grounded." 
But  that  is  exactly  what  your  spirit  can  best  and 
quickest  teach  you.  The  spirit  will  make  its  own 
rules.  Left  to  itself,  it  will  strike  out  new  and 
original  methods.  Rules  already  made  never  taught 
Shakspeare,  Byron,  Burns,  or  Napoleon.  They 
trusted  to  their  interior  power,  the  interior  sugges- 
tions concerning  methods.  When  astonishing  results 
are  attained,  men  call  it  "genius,"  and  then  go 
straightway  to  work  to  frame  from  the  method 
adopted  by  genius  a  new  set  of  shackles  to  impose 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  THE   ART   OF   STUDY. 

on  all  successors  in  the  same  art.  Genius  may  use 
a  certain  method  as  we  may  a  crutch.  When  it  has 
served  a  purpose,  we  throw  it  away  for  something 
better  to  walk  by.  The  methods  of  genius  are  ever 
changing.  Napoleon  revolutionized  military  science. 
His  was  a  mind  that  could  have  re-revolutionized 
his  own  tactics.  Genius  alone  can  see  the  folly  of 
always  travelling  the  same  path,  even  though  it  has 
itself  made  that  path. 

Don't  be  over-anxious  because  you  do  not  learn 
or  advance  in  any  art  or  calling  as  fast  as  you  wish. 
Don't  fret  in  mind  because  attempt  after  attempt 
fails.  Don't  hurry.  When  you  feel  in  the  mood  of 
hurry  and  fret,  stop !  That  is  the  state  of  mind 
most  opposed  to  learning.  That  is  the  mood  which 
wastes  your  strength. 

You  can  learn  any  thing  if  your  mind  be  persist' 
ently  set  upon  it.  Then  wait  in  peace.  The  art 
will  come  to  you. 

If  you  will,  for  fifteen  minutes  or  half  an  hour 
daily,  sit  down  with  a  box  of  colors,  and  idly  daub 
and  make  play  of  trying  effects  in  color  by  painting 
one  shade  over  another,  you  will,  if  you  desire  to 
paint,  see  skies,  mountains,  and  forest  coming  in  those 
alternations  of  light  and  shade,  as  one  coating  of 
color  is  placed  over  another.  A  rugged,  splintered 
rock  will  suddenly  start  out  from  a  splash  of  paint. 
You  will  have  it  suggested  to  you  how  easily  tree- 
trunks  can  be  simulated  by  a  few  straight  or  curved 
lines.  A  splash  of  blue  will  serve  for  a  pond  or 
lake,  green  markings  on  its  edge  will  represent 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART  OF   STUDY.  5 

shrubbery;  and,  ere  you  know  it,  there  is  a  land- 
scape, —  more  beautiful  to  you  with  all  its  crudeness 
than  the  work  of  the  greatest  artist,  because  it  is 
your  own  seemingly  accidental  creation,  your  own 
child. 

This  is  the  foundation  of  the  art.  In  this  it  had 
its  origin.  From  this  it  grew.  A  seeming  accidental 
combination  of  light,  shade,  and  color  suggested  to 
some  mind  ages  ago  the  idea  of  so  representing 
familiar  things  to  the  eye  on  a  flat  surface.  From 
this  was  drawn  the  idea  of  perspective  and  of  repre- 
senting surface,  round,  flat,  or  indented,  near  or  far ; 
and  every  new  pupil,  teacher  or  no  teacher,  must 
begin  where  the  first  painter  did,  and  tread  in  his 
footsteps.  It  is  so  in  all  art. 

The  more  free  the  mind  is  left  to  follow  its  own 
teaching,  its  intuition,  the  guidance  of  the  spirit,  the 
greater  the  inspiration.  If  it  is  put  into  rules  made 
for  it  by  others,  there  are  produced  only  imitators 
and  copyists.  A  rule  laid  down,  with  strict  injunc- 
tion to  the  pupil  never  to  transgress  it,  is  a  shackle, 
a  bar  to  advance  in  new  territory  of  thought  and 
investigation. 

The  mood  for  study  —  that  is,  for  finding  out 
methods  and  remembering  them  —  must  be  the  mood 
of  as  perfect  repose  as  you  can  attain.  There  must 
be  no  hurry,  no  excitement.  If  you  grow  too  wild 
over  a  sudden  success,  a  finding  of  something  in 
your  efforts  you  have  long  sought  for,  beware  !  or 
you  will  temporarily  lose  it.  There  must  be  no  sud- 
den startings  of  body  or  mind,  nor  impatience  to 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  THE  ART    OP   STUDY. 

hurry  over  any  detail  that  is  necessary.  If  a  tool  you 
are  using  breaks,  or  a  chair  is  to  be  moved,  or  your 
pen  needs  cleaning,  do  it  as  though  that  was  the 
only  thing  to  be  done  for  the  day.  Keep  the  body 
in  as  perfect  a  state  of  rest  as  possible.  Be  apathetic 
rather  than  strained  or  eager.  When  your  body  is 
in  this  state  of  repose,  it  is  in  the  state  best  fitted  to 
be  used  as  the  instrument  of  the  mind,  or  spirit.  It 
is  then  most  ruled  by  your  thought,  your  real  self, 
your  invisible  self,  your  spirit. 

Because  when  body  and  mind  are  in  this  condition, 
—  when  you  suspend  all  faculties  save  those  concen- 
trated on  the  work,  or  when  your  mind  is  in  the 
receiving  state,  —  your  spirit  can  best  work  for  you. 
It  can  then  reach  out  and  bring  back  the  idea,  the 
effect,  the  method,  the  conception  and  means  of  car- 
rying out  that  conception ;  and  the  more  quiet  the 
body,  and  more  tranquil  the  mind,  the  sooner  will 
it  teach  how  what  you  wish  to  do  shall  be  done. 
In  schooling  yourself  to  this  condition,  you  become 
more  and  more  the  medium  through  whom  new  ideas 
can  be  transmitted.  You  then  connect  yourself  with 
the  more  exalted  regions  of  mind  or  currents  of 
thought,  and  receive  of  their  knowledge  and  inspira- 
tion. Your  mind  is  then  the  tranquil  lake,  the  clear 
well,  reflecting  every  thing  above. 

You  study  every  day,  often  when  you  least  think 
you  are  studying.  You  study  as  you  walk  the  street 
in  repose,  and  look  into  people's  faces,  and  are  inter- 
ested and  amused  by  them.  You  are  then  learning 
more  and  more  of  the  different  varieties  of  human 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OF   STUDY.  7 

nature.  Men  and  women  then  are  books  to  you. 
You  open  and  read  them.  You  learn  to  recognize 
in  an  instant,  by  the  look  on  people's  faces,  how  they 
feel  and  what  are  their  dispositions.  Involuntarily, 
you  are  classifying  men  and  women,  and  putting  their 
down  in  your  mind  according  to  their  characters. 
One  specimen  so  recognized  serves  as  the  type  for 
one  thousand,  for  a  race.  You  set  down  this  man 
as  no  gentleman,  from  the  manner  in  which  he  looks 
at  a  lady.  You  see  in  this  overdressed  woman  the 
low  pride  of  mere  money.  You  are  studying  human 
nature.  Knowledge  of  human  nature  has  a  com- 
mercial value  in  dollars  and  cents.  When  you  are 
accomplished  in  it,  you  may  tell  in  five  seconds 
whether  you  can  trust  a  person  or  not.  Trust  in 
people  is  the  corner-stone  of  all  business  success. 
Even  thieves  must  trust  to  confederates  in  order 
successfully  to  accomplish  a  burglary. 

Napoleon  the  First  accomplished  his  great  successes 
through  this  intuitive,  self-taught  knowledge  of  men, 
and  for  what  they  were  best  adapted.  Christ  chose 
the  twelve  best  fitted  to  receive  his  truths,  and  teach 
them  to  others,  through  the  same  intuition.  Intuition 
means  the  inward  teaching,  and  the  inward  teacher. 
This  teacher  resides  in  all  of  you.  Give  it  free  play, 
and  demand  also  of  the  infinite  Spirit  wisdom,  guid- 
ance, and  suggestion,  and  it  will  grow  into  genius, 
and  your  genius.  Genius  recognizes  diamonds  in 
the  rough,  and  the  qualities  for  success  in  men  and 
women,  whether  externally  they  be  peer  or  peasant, 
cultured  or  uncultured,  according  to  the  worldly 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  THE  ART   OF   STUDY. 

standard  of  learning.  Genius  may  sometimes  talk 
bad  grammar,  yet  remove  mountains,  build  cities,  and 
put  railway  and  telegraphic  girdles  around  this 
planet.  Culture  may  write  and  speak  elegantly,  yet 
not  be  able  to  remove  a  mole-hill.  Culture  often 
struggles  and  starves  on  ten  dollars  a  week  in  an 
office,  as  the  mere  tool  of  an  ungrammatical,  uncul- 
tured, and  inhuman  genius,  who  makes  his  thousand 
to  culture's  ten. 

The  mood  of  repose,  of  unruffled  and  serene  mind, 
is  the  mood  in  which  all  manner  of  discoveries  are 
made,  and  ideas  grasped  or  received.  The  eye  on 
the  lookout,  ever  strained  and  eager,  does  not  at  sea 
catch  sight  of  the  distant  sail  near  as  quickly  as  the 
one  not  looking  for  it.  The  name  of  the  person 
temporarily  escaped  from  memory  rarely  comes  when 
we  are  "trying  hard"  to  think  of  it.  It  is  only 
when  we  cease  trying  to  think,  that  the  name  comes 
to  us. 

Indeed,  this  trying  to  think  causes  an  unconscious 
straining  of  muscle.  We  try  to  work  our  brains. 
We  send  the  blood  to  the  head  in  this  effort.  All 
this  is  an  obstacle  to  the  spirit.  We  set  its  force  at 
work  the  wrong  way.  It  is  made  then  to  pile  up 
obstacles,  instead  of  taking  them  away.  Because, 
the  more  quiet  is  kept  all  that  belongs  to  the  body, 
•:he  more  force  is  added  to  the  spirit,  to  use  whatever 
of  its  own  its  interior  senses  and  functions  it  would, 
to  bring  us  what  we  desire.  Our  spirits  have  their 
own,  their  peculiar  senses,  distinct  and  apart  from 
the  sight,  hearing,  smell,  taste,  and  touch  of  the  body. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ABT   OF   STUDY.  9 

They  are  finer,  more  powerful,  more  far  reaching. 
Your  interior,  or  spiritual,  sense  of  feeling  can,  when 
trained  or  brought  out  of  its  present  dormancy,  feel 
or  communicate  with  the  same  sense  of  another  per- 
son, whose  body  is  in  London  or  Pekin,  and  possibly 
is  now  doing  so  continually :  for  there  may  be  a  spirit 
whose  body  is  now  in  London  or  Pekin,  in  closer 
alliance,  relationship,  and  rapport  with  your  own, 
than  is  any  other  spirit  in  the  universe ;  and  with 
such  spirit  you  may  now  be  in  daily  and  hourly  com- 
munication, through  this  interior  and  far-reaching 
sense  which  scorns  the  idea  of  distance  as  we  inter- 
pret that  word. 

The  profit  of  not  over-working  or  over-straining 
the  body  is  proven  all  about  us  in  the  every-day 
affairs  of  life.  The  most  successful  man  in  business  is 
he  of  the  coolest  head,  —  the  self-contained  man,  who 
has  intuitively  learned  to  keep  his  body  free  from 
fatigue,  so  that  his  spirit  can  work.  Yet  that  same 
man  may  not  know  he  has  a  spirit,  or  rather  a  power 
and  a  sense,  which  goes  out  from  his  body,  and  brings 
him  plans  and  schemes  and  crafty  ideas  for  his  world 
of  getting  and  gaining.  Because  spiritual  powers 
can  be  used  for  all  manner  of  purposes,  no  other 
power  is  used.  Spiritual  law  is  worked  in  the  inter- 
est of  craft,  as  well  as  for  higher  motive.  But  the 
higher  motive,  when  it  comes  to  recognize  this  force, 
and  use  it  intelligently,  will  always  command  the 
greater  power,  the  keener  thought,  and  the  highest 
genius. 

Successful  effort  in  every  phase  of  life  comes  of 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  THE  ABT   OF   STUDY. 

the  exercise  of  this  power.  It  is  "  being  led  of  the 
spirit."  If  you  have  lost  your  way,  you  will  find  it 
much  quicker  by  going  very  slowly,  so  keeping  the 
spirit  concentrated,  instead  of  rushing  the  body  about 
hither  and  thither,  without  aim  or  object.  The  ex- 
perienced hunter  puts  himself  in  this  frame  of  mind, 
and  saunters  through  the  woods ;  while  the  ignorant 
city  boy,  wild  with  excitement,  rushes  over  miles  of 
territory  and  sees  no  game.  In  both  these  cases, 
when  the  body  is  made  to  a  degree  apathetic,  does  a 
certain  power,  an  unrecognized  sense,  go  out  and  find 
for  you  your  way.  It  finds  the  hunter  his  game. 
There  is  a  great  truth  in  being  "  led  of  the  spirit ;" 
and  it  applies  to  all  grades  of  spirit,  and  consequent 
motive,  be  it  high  or  low,  kind  or  cruel,  gentle  or 
harsh. 

Sometimes  you  find  yourself,  without  knowing  why, 
in  the  self-contained,  satisfied,  contented  mood  of 
spirit.  You  are  able  to  walk  leisurely.  You  are  in 
no  hurry.  No  wild  or  unconquerable  desire  is  upon 
you.  You  feel  at  peace  with  all  the  world.  You 
have  forgotten  your  enemies,  your  cares,  your  anxie- 
ties. It  is  then  you  most  enjoy  the  woods,  the  skies, 
the  passing  crowd  about  you.  It  is  then,  when  you 
are  amused  by  them,  that  you  most  study  them.  You 
see  peculiarities  of  person  and  manner  which  would 
escape  you  at  other  times.  Your  mind,  quiet  and 
undisturbed,  is  constantly  receiving  agreeable  and 
vivid  impressions.  You  wish  such  moods  could  last 
forever.  So  they  can.  This  is  the  mood  born  of  the 
concentrated  spirit.  Your  spirit  is  then  focussed  to 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OP   STUDY.  11 

a  state  of  rest.  It  is  holding  its  strength  in  reserve, 
only  expending  enough  to  move  your  body. 

We  are,  when  in  this  state,  absorbing  thought.  To 
absorb  thought  is  to  absorb  lasting  power.  But  if, 
when  in  the  act  of  such  absorption,  any  thing  annoys 
or  hurries  us,  this  power  of  absorbing  thought  is  in- 
stantly destroyed.  Our  spirit  ceases  then  to  be  the 
open  hand  receiving  ideas.  It  becomes  the  clinched 
fist.  It  is  then  combative.  It  goes  straight  to  what- 
ever annoys  or  hurries  it,  and  rages  and  frets  around 
it.  When  we  say  "  goes,"  we  mean  our  thought  as 
an  element  literally  goes  out  to  the  place  we  are 
hurrying  to,  or  the  person  who  troubles.  It  is  a  real 
thing  so  going  out.  It  is  our  strength  of  both  bod}7 
and  mind  which  is  constantly  leaving  us.  We  cease 
then  to  study.  Repose  and  serenity  of  mind  means 
a  condition  of  perpetual  study ;  and,  with  such,  a  con- 
tinual in-drawing  of  strength.  We  can  discipline 
ourselves  to  such  repose,  until  it  will  accompany  and 
pervade  all  efforts,  so  that  we  shall  rest  as  we  work. 

This  is  the  mood  of  mind  proper  for  study,  work, 
or  enjoyment.  These  three  things  should  mean  but 
one,  —  enjoyment.  Without  this  mood,  nothing  can 
be  really  enjoyed ;  with  its  cultivation,  every  thing 
becomes  more  and  more  enjoyable.  It  is  the  mood 
of  construction.  Our  tinseen  forces  are  then  massed 
together :  so  massed,  they  can  turn  their  full  strength 
on  any  thing  at  a  moment's  notice.  It  is  the  mood 
in  which  you  want  to  walk  into  the  office  of  the  hard, 
purse-proud  man  who  proposes  to  crush  you  with  a 
look.  Keep  in  this  mood,  and  you  are  more  than  his 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


12  THB  ART   OF  STUDY. 

equal.  He  will  feel  your  power  before  you  speak. 
It  is  the  mood  of  mind  which  you  need  to  deal  with 
the  wily  shopkeeper,  who  makes  you  feel  by  his  man- 
ner that  he  expects  you  to  buy  something,  whether 
you  wish  to  or  not,  and  generally  succeeds  in  mak- 
ing you  do  so.  These  people  throw  their  thought- 
force  on  you  for  this  purpose.  They  are  commercial 
mesmerizers.  Their  mesmeric  control  is  as  genuine 
as  that  shown  at  public  exhibitions.  They  may  not 
recognize  it  in  this  form  ;  yet  they  work  it  on  their 
customers,  unconscious  of  the  law  by  which  they  work. 

It  is  in  this  mood  that  the  spirit  becomes  as  a  mag- 
net. As  its  forces  are  so  drawn  to  a  centre,  their 
power  of  drawing  to  you  ideas  becomes  greater. 
This  power  will  increase  continually  by  exercise.  If 
you  are  so  ever  drawing  to  you  ideas,  you  are  draw- 
ing more  and  more  power ;  you  are  drawing  to  you 
new  plans,  schemes,  and  inventions ;  you  are  sharpen- 
ing all  your  faculties  for  any  kind  of  work  or  busi- 
ness. Your  spirit  so  massed  is  a  power,  either  for 
resistance,  or  a  power  to  draw  in  strength. 

The  trouble  with  many  of  us  learners  is  that  we 
wish  to  learn  too  rapidly.  We  have  little  knowledge 
of  the  power  which  really  brings  us  all  we  do  acquire, 
—  the  power  which  reaches  out  from  us  when  the 
other  faculties  are  temporarily  suspended,  and  brings 
back  not  only  ideas,  but  teaches  the  muscles  how  to 
carry  out  ideas.  New  invention  comes  to  the  mind 
which  originates  it  when  in  this  state,  not  when  the 
mind  is  straining  after  its  plan.  You  will  make  a 
perfect  circle  on  paper  with  pen  or  pencil  far  easier 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  ART   OF   STUDY.  13 

when  you  do  it  idly,  and  care  little  whether  you  suc- 
ceed or  not,  than  if  you  are  tremulous  with  anxiety 
to  make  one.  When  you  are  free  from  that  anxiety, 
your  real  power  has  opportunity  to  act.  That  is  th& 
power  of  the  spirit.  It  is  the  man  who  throws  all 
thought  of  success  or  failure  to  the  winds,  who  is 
most  likely  to  accomplish  the  daring  act  at  which 
others  shrink,  or,  if  they  try,  try  with  great  dread  of 
failure,  which  is  mistaken  for  care.  The  best  pilot 
through  raging  rapids  is  the  man  who  has  the  power 
to  forget  all  danger  and  see  only  obstacles.  His. 
spirit  then  possesses  his  real  self.  Self-possession 
means  the  power  of  the  spirit  to  possess  and  control 
the  body  its  instrument.  The  lack  of  it  implies  that 
the  uneducated  spirit,  the  real  self,  imagines  it  is 
nothing  but  the  body  it  handles.  It  is  as  if  the 
carpenter  thought  himself  only  a  saw  or  a  hammer. 
Self-possession  forgets  all  about  the  body  when  it  is 
using  it.  It  thinks  only  on  the  use.  The  carpenter 
is  not,  while  using  his  saw,  thinking  perpetually  of 
the  instrument.  His  thought  is  on  the  trained  mus- 
cle which  directs  the  tool. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


PROFIT  AND  LOSS  IN  ASSOCIATES. 


THOUGHT  being  unseen  substance  is  absorbed  by 
all.  If  you  absorb  another  person's  thought,  it  min- 
gles with  your  own.  Then  in  part,  if  not  in  whole, 
you  will  think  that  person's  thought.  You  will  to 
some  extent  see,  feel,  judge,  and  form  opinion,  as 
does  that  person.  You  are  to  greater  or  lesser  ex- 
tent swayed  and  influenced  by  the  person.  His  or 
her  thought,  or  spirit,  has  mingled  with  yours.  You 
are  not  then  wholly  yourself.  You  are  in  part  that 
other  person. 

This  is  as  much  a  mesmeric  power  thrown  upon 
you,  as  that  thrown  by  the  mesmerizer  on  his  subject. 
It  works  by  the  same  law.  If  you  associate  a  great 
deal  with  another  person,  are  rarely  by  yourself,  and 
see  few  others,  you  will  be  constantly  taking  in  that 
person's  thought.  If  it  is  in  motive  and  refinement 
higher  than  your  own,  you  will  be  benefited  by  it. 
If  it  be  in  motive,  taste,  and  refinement  lower  than 
yours,  you  will  be  injured.  Your  taste,  your  refine- 
ment, your  motive,  and  judgment,  also  will  be  tinged 
with  the  thought  of  the  inferior  person.  It  is  in  this 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  PROFIT   AND   LOSS  IN  ASSOCIATES. 

way  that  "evil  communications  corrupt  good  man- 
ners." 

Through  this  cause,  you  may  see  in  mind  very 
keenly  in  one  direction  and  very  blindly  in  another. 

To  be  closely  associated  with  a  person  thinking 
much  of  the  time  his  or  her  lower  thought,  is  for  you 
to  absorb  this  thought.  You  imagine,  then,  the  views 
you  take  and  opinions  you  form  are  your  own.  They 
are  not  wholly  your  own.  Were  you  to  leave  that 
person's  association  for  any  length  of  time,  you  would 
find  many  of  your  old  opinions  changing,  because 
you  would  then  be  out  of  reach  of  that  person's 
lower  and  less  clear  thought. 

To  be  much  of  the  time  with  a  gloomy  or  despond- 
ent person,  or  one  fretful,  or  easily  angered,  or  cyn- 
ical, or  sceptical,  or  in  any  way  thinking  evil  or 
injurious  thought,  is  for  you  unsafe.  Be  you  as  con- 
fident, determined,  and  courageous  as  you  may,  you 
will  still  absorb  some  of  their  despondency,  irresolu- 
tion, or  cowardice,  and  be  affected  by  it.  It  will  be 
a  blur  on  your  judgment.  It  will  be  so  much  extra 
load  of  cowardly  or  irresolute  thought  to  tax  your 
courage  or  resolution.  Of  whatever  evil  quality  that 
psr-son's  thought  is,  it  will  infect  you  more  or  less 
with  that  quality. 

You  need  never  be  influenced,  swayed,  or  con- 
trolled by  another's  thought,  if  you  earnestly  desire 
not  to  be.  Such  desire  is  a  prayer.  Prayer  is  the 
demand  of  your  spirit  to  be  free  of  every  thing  that 
can  cripple  its  power  and  happiness.  Power  and  hap- 
piness ocean  the  same  thing.  Power  means  ability  to 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


PROFIT  AND   LOSS   IN   ASSOCIATES.  3 

drive  off  every  thing  that  troubles  you.  Power  means 
ability  to  keep  your  mind  in  the  mood  or  frame  of 
happiness.  When  that  power  is  gained,  and  you  rule 
your  mood  and  do  not  allow  the  mood  to  rule  you, 
every  thing  on  the  material  plane  of  life  will  shape 
itself  and  come  to  you  in  accordance  with  your  mood. 
The  law  of  correspondences  between  spiritual  and 
material  things  is  wonderfully  exact  in  its  working. 
People  ruled  by  the  mood  of  gloom  attract  to  them 
gloomy  things.  People  always  discouraged  and  de- 
spondent do  not  succeed  in  any  thing,  and  live  only 
by  burdening  some  one  else.  The  hopeful,  confident, 
and  cheerful  attract  the  elements  of  success.  A  man's 
front  or  back  yard  will  advertise  that  man's  ruling 
mood,  in  the  way  it  is  kept.  A  woman  at  home  shows 
her  state  of  mind  in  her  dress.  A  slattern  advertises 
the  ruling  mood  of  hopelessness,  carelessness,  and 
lack  of  system.  Rags,  tatters,  and  dirt  are  always 
in  the  mind  before  being  on  the  body.  The  thought 
that  is  most  put  out  brings  its  corresponding  visible 
element  to  crystallize  about  you,  as  surely  and  liter- 
ally as  the  visible  bit  of  copper  in  solution  attracts  to 
it  the  invisible  copper  in  that  solution.  A  mind 
always  hopeful,  confident,  courageous,  and  determined 
on  its  set  purpose,  and  keeping  itself  to  that  purpose, 
attracts  to  itself  out  of  the  elements  things  and 
powers  favorable  to  that  purpose. 

If  you  think  corruption,  you  will  breed  corruption 
in  your  body.  You  will  have  sores  or  boils  or  erup- 
tions, or  some  disease  coming  of  "  bad  blood,"  which 
is  the  real  cause  of  all  disease.  The  blood  is  made 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  PKOFIT   AND  LOSS   IN  ASSOCIATES. 

impure  by  the  spirit's  impurity.  The  spirit  is  the 
life  of  the  blood.  The  spirit  is  your  thought.  What 
you  think,  comes  of  your  spirit.  What  you  think, 
you  are  ever  building  into  your  spirit.  Impure  or 
corrupt  thought  means  far  more  than  licentious 
thought.  It  means  as  well  the  ugly,  hating  thought, 
or  dislike  of  others.  It  means  the  thought  of  gain, 
at  any  cost  to  others.  It  means  all  fretting,  discour- 
aged, despondent,  and  hopeless  thought.  It  means 
long-continued  grief  at  any  loss.  It  means  any 
thought  that  weighs  down  the  spirit.  What  weighs 
on  the  spirit,  will  always  injure  the  body.  To  grieve 
at  the  loss  of  a  friend,  will  "  pull  one  down,"  as  well 
as  what  are  called  specially  "immoral  practices." 
The  injury  done  the  body  may  be  quite  as  great. 
Therefore  the  sin  is  as  great.  People  who  fret  are 
great  sinners.  They  are  creating  a  fretting  spirit. 
They  are  solidifying  their  fretting  into  a  habit  which 
becomes  more  and  more  difficult  to  break  off.  This 
tears  the  body  to  pieces,  and  will  eventually  kill  it. 
These  people,  then,  are  as  guilty  as  the  victim  of 
some  loathsome  disease  caused  by  vice,  so  called. 
Any  habit  which  injures  is  a  vice.  True,  some  dis- 
eases are  more  respectable  than  others.  Consump- 
tion sounds  better  than  delirium  tremens.  Yet  both 
kill  the  body.  Both  come  of  violations  of  the  law. 
Both  are  penalties  paid  for  such  violation. 

Every  thought  of  yours  has  a  literal  value  to  you 
in  every  possible  way.  The  strength  of  your  body, 
the  strength  of  your  mind,  your  success  in  business, 
and  the  pleasure  your  company  brings  others,  depends 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


PEOFIT   AND   LOSS   IN  ASSOCIATES.  5 

on  the  nature  of  your  thoughts.  Every  one  of  your 
thoughts  is  a  part  of  yourself.  It  is  felt  by  others 
as  a  part  of  yourself.  You  need  not  always  speak, 
to  be  agreeable  company.  Those  near  you  will 
feel  your  thought  pleasantly,  if  yours  are  pleasant 
thoughts.  You  need  not  always  speak,  to  be  felt 
disagreeably.  Your  disagreeable  thought  will  also 
be  felt.  A  person's  "  magnetism  "  is  their  thought. 
Magnetic  power  or  influence  is  simply  thought  felt 
by  others.  If  your  thought  is  despondent,  gloomy, 
jealous,  carping,  cynical,  it  repels.  If  cheerful,  hope- 
ful, and  full  of  earnest  desire  to  do  the  most  good 
possible  to  any  one  you  meet,  though  but  for  a  single 
minute,  it  attracts. 

Too  much  association  with  any  one  of  lower 
thought  may  lessen  3rour  natural  power  to  attract. 
You  may  carry  a  part  of  their  selfish,  cynical,  gloomy, 
or  other  evil  thought  with  you  wherever  you  go. 
You  put  it  out  with  your  own.  It  is  felt  as  a  dis- 
agreeable alloy  with  your  own. 

Your  value  and  charm  for  others,  as  a  companion, 
depends  far  more  on  what  you  think,  than  on  what 
you  say.  If  your  thought  is  all  pure,  clean,  bright, 
confident,  and  courageous,  you  are  a  value,  and  an 
increasing  value,  wherever  you  go.  People  will  al- 
ways be  glad  to  see  you.  When  you  bring  yourself 
(your  thought),  you  bring  an  actual  pleasure  to  peo- 
ple. You  bring  also  a  power  and  strength  to  them. 
Your  thought  helps  to  strengthen  their  bodies.  They 
feel  better  for  seeing  you.  You  are  as  a  fountain  of 
health  and  pleasure  wherever  you  go.  You  can  dis- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  PKOFIT  AND  LOSS   IN  ASSOCIATES. 

arm  the  sourest  temper,  and  the  person  most  opposed 
to  you.  When  you  can  say  in  mind,  "  I  refuse  to 
look  upon  any  person  as  my  enemy,"  you  will  have 
no  enemies.  When  we  talk  of  "having  enemies," 
and  keep  on,  in  thought,  looking  on  certain  people  a& 
enemies,  we  are  making  them  enemies,  because  such 
people  feel  that  order  of  thought  coming  from  us. 
It  is  an  element  flowing  from  you  to  them.  It  affects 
them  disagreeably.  If  you  are  ever  sending  out  the 
thought,  "  I  am  not  your  enemy.  I  do  not  wish  to 
feel  disagreeably  towards  you.  I  want  to  like  you 
better  than  I  do,"  they  will  soon  feel  this  thought. 
They  cannot  resist  its  power.  The  thought  of  good 
is  always  stronger  than  that  of  evil.  This  is  a  law 
of  nature. 

The  corner-stone  in  the  power  and  charm  of  a  per- 
son's thought  is  this,  expressed  in  words,  "  I  want  to 
help  you  in  whatever  way  I  can.  I  want  to  help 
build  you  up.  I  want  to  help  you  to  better  health, 
to  better  business,  to  the  place  where  you  really  be- 
long, to  the  position  where  your  talents  may  most 
shine."  If  this  thought  is  sincere,  it  carries  immense 
power.  It  will  always  be  drawing  more  power  to 
you,  because  every  additional  person's  good-will  you 
so  draw  and  fasten  to  you  is  an  additional  unseen 
rill  of  life  feeding  yours.  It  is  a  rill  of  substance, 
though  unseen,  —  as  real  as  the  elements  we  do  see. 
Good-will  of  others  is  constructive  thought.  It  helps 
build  us  up.  It  is  good  for  your  body.  It  makes 
your  blood  purer,  your  muscles  stronger,  and  your 
whole  form  more  symmetrical  in  shape.  It  is  the 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


PROFIT   AND   LOSS   IN  ASSOCIATES.  7 

real  "  elixir  of  life."  The  more  of  such  thought  you 
attract  to  you,  the  more  life  will  you  have.  You 
draw,  then,  the  best  elements  from  all  with  whom 
you  associate.  If  you  send  out  a  contrary  order  of 
thought,  you  draw  to  you  from  them  the  poisonous 
and  destructive  elements.  These  will  hurt  your 
body.  Persons  in  this  way  are  literally  hated  to 
death.  The  ill-will  of  many  people  fixed  on  one  man 
can  injure  that  man's  health.  It  has  killed  many. 
It  can  injure  no  one,  if  they  oppose  it  with  the 
thought  of  good-will,  and  the  desire  to  do  justice, 
which  must  always  go  with  good-will.  Nothing  else 
can  successfully  oppose  it.  If  you  persist  in  the 
thought  of  good  intent  to  all,  you  are  connecting 
yourself  with  the  higher  and  more  powerful  order 
of  thought  element.  You  are  then  receiving  of  that 
thought  from  minds,  and  from  a  world  of  greater 
power  than  you  can  now  realize  of  here.  You  are 
connecting  yourself  with  a  world  which  does  nothing 
but  build  up,  whose  inhabitants  are  gods  in  power, 
and  whose  creations  at  will  are  beyond  our  wildest 
dreams.  All  that  so-called  fable  or  fancy  has  con- 
ceived of  are  realities  in  the  higher  worlds  of  mind. 
When,  by  the  thought  of  good  intent  to  all,  you  so 
connect  yourself  with  that  world,  you  are  receiving 
of  their  powerful  thought.  You  are  then  absolutely 
safe  against  all  enemies. 

This  is  no  myth  of  sentiment.  It  belongs  to  the 
same  system  of  law  whereby  the  sun  gives  heat, 
the  winds  blow,  the  tides  move,  the  seed  grows.  In 
whatever  mood  you  set  your  mind,  does  your  spirit 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  PROFIT  AND   LOSS   IN  ASSOCIATES. 

receive  of  unseen  substance  in  correspondence  with 
that  mood.  It  is  as  much  a  chemical  law  as  a  spirit- 
ual law.  Chemistry  is  not  confined  to  the  elements 
we  see.  The  elements  we  do  not  see  with  the  phys- 
ical eye  outnumber  ten  thousand  times  those  we  do 
see.  The  Christ  injunction,  "  Do  good  to  those  who 
hate  you,"  is  based  on  a  scientific  fact  and  a  natural 
law.  So  to  do  good,  is  to  bring  to  yourself  all  the 
elements  in  nature  of  power  and  good.  To  do  evil, 
is  to  bring  the  contrary  destructive  elements.  When 
our  eyes  are  opened,  self-preservation  will  make  us 
stop  all  evil  thought.  Those  who  live  by  hate  will 
die  by  hate ;  that  is,  "  those  who  live  by  the  sword 
will  die  by  the  sword."  Every  evil  thought  is  as  a 
sword  drawn  on  the  person  to  whom  it  is  directed. 
If  a  sword  is  drawn  in  return,  so  much  the  worse  for 
both. 

Christ  controlled  the  elements  by  the  power  of  his 
own  thought,  and  his  connection  with  the  higher  and 
powerful  world  of  thought.  Thought  being  substance, 
can,  when  very  powerful,  be  so  concentrated  as  to  be 
made  visible  in  physical  forms.  It  was  Christ's 
thought,  and  the  power  so  exercised,  that  caused  the 
so-called  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  and  all  the 
others. 

Once,  on  a  woman's  touching  the  hem  of  Christ's 
garment  to  be  healed,  he  said,  "  Who  hath  touched 
me?  Virtue  hath  gone  out  of  me."  This  was  a 
woman  full  of  evil  thought.  Christ  felt  immediately 
the  contamination  of  her  thought.  It  was  to  him  as 
poison.  Mingling  with  his  own,  it  for  the  moment 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


PROFIT  AND   LOSS   IN   ASSOCIATES.  9 

corrupted  it.  It  lessened  for  the  moment  his  power 
to  control  the  elements.  By  virtue  going  from  him, 
he  meant  power  going  from  him. 

Christ's  spirit  was  so  pure  and  sensitive  as  to  feel 
immediately  the  contact  with  any  evil  order  of 
thought. 

Your  power  to  feel  people's  natures  is  always  pro- 
portionate to  your  freedom  from  any  evil  thought. 
Purity  means  power.  Steel  is  at  once  the  purity  of 
iron,  and  the  power  of  iron.  Highly  refined  spirit 
comes  of  the  purest  thought,  and  is  the  most  power- 
ful thought.  Christ  felt  the  woman's  evil  nature  and 
its  effects.  But,  knowing  the  laws,  he  shook  off  the 
evil  by  his  more  powerful  thought  of  good-will  to 
her.  So  he  could  have  done  had  he  been  compelled 
to  remain  long  in  association  with  her.  He  would 
not  have  so  remained  save  for  some  special  purpose  ; 
because  the  resisting  power  he  would  have  been 
obliged  to  put  out  to  throw  off  the  evil  results  of  her 
thought,  might  have  been  expended  with  far  more 
profit  in  other  directions.  If  your  thought  is  the 
superior,  there  may  be  many  persons  to  whom  you 
can  do  only  a  certain  amount  of  good  through,  asso- 
ciation. They  can  only  receive  a  small  amount  of 
your  thought.  They  give  back  in  return,  and  you 
absorb  a  large  amount  of  their  inferior  thought.  It 
is  as  if  you  gave  them  gold,  and  got  back  iron.  You 
may  from  them  get  more  iron  than  is  good  for  you. 
You  give  them  a  great  deal  of  gold  they  cannot  ab- 
sorb. In  this  way,  both  of  you  are  injured. 

You  will    therefore    associate   most  where  your 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  PROFIT   AND   LOSS   Df  ASSOCIATES. 

thought  is  most  appreciated  and  also  used.  Then 
both  of  you  are  benefited  mentally  and  physically. 
You  are  not  "  unequally  yoked  together." 

If  your  superior  thought  merely  entertains  people, 
and  they  get  no  good  from  it  save  a  pleasure  for 
the  moment,  you  may  be  of  use  to  them  and  so  are 
they  to  you.  But  the  use  is  relatively  small.  They 
may  value  you  most  as  an  entertainment,  and  but 
little  as  a  use.  If  they  improve  very  slowly  through 
the  thought  absorbed  from  you,  you  cannot  afford 
much  close  association  with  them.  They  are  your 
distant  spiritual  relations. 

If  they  improve  rapidly  through  your  association, 
if  they  take  the  truth  you  give,  and  try  to  act  and 
live  up  to  it,  you  can  longer  remain  near  them.  They 
are  your  near  spiritual  relations.  If  they  improve 
very  rapidly,  they  make  with  such  improvement  a 
certain  life  or  quality  of  thought  peculiarly  their 
own.  This  will  be  absorbed  as  a  nourishment  and 
strength  for  you.  You  are  then  giving  and  receiving 
to  advantage. 

If  yours  is  the  superior  thought,  there  may  come 
seasons  when  some  time  is  needed  by  the  other  to 
assimilate  what  you  have  given.  There  may  then  be 
certain  periods  of  separation. 

Both  of  you,  on  again  coming  together,  will  be  the 
better  and  stronger  for  such  separation.  You  then 
come  together  to  give  to  each  other  of  new  elements 
of  thought  gathered  elsewhere.  There  are  no  eter- 
nal separations  for  those  who  are  building  up  their 
spirits  of  similar  elements  of  thought.  They  grow 

Thoughts  are  Thing& 


PROFIT   AND   LOSS  IN   ASSOCIATES.  11 

ever  closer  and  closer  together.  They  build  into 
each  other's  hearts.  They  are  always  enriching  each 
other.  They  separate  with  the  assured  certainty  of 
meeting  again.  They  will  meet  only  to  find  more 
and  more  in  each  other.  They  find  that  the  law 
which  at  first  they  thought  so  hard,  harsh,  and  cruel, 
is  only  a  source  and  means  for  permanent  peace  and 
happiness. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  SLAVERY  OF  FEAR. 


THE  most  common,  yet  most  unknown,  form  of 
slavery  is  that  where  you  are  ruled  by  the  thought 
about  you.  You  may  be  in  the  employ  of  another 
person.  You  do  your  best  to  earn  your  money. 
You  are  conscientious,  and  desire  to  earn  your  wages. 
Yet  you  are  troubled  by  a  continual  fear,  that  you 
do  not  give  full  satisfaction,  or  that  you  may  be 
discharged.  You  live  in  continual  fear  of  coming  to 
want,  if  so  discharged,  or  of  being  obliged  to  continue 
this  mere  struggle  for  the  body's  existence  under  still 
harder  conditions. 

The  reason  for  these  unpleasant  thoughts  is,  that 
some  other  mind  is  acting  on  your  own.  Some  one 
is  hostile  to  you.  You  feel  that  hostile  thought.  It 
is  not  on  your  part  a  "notion."  There  are  many 
persons  to-day,  living  under  control  of  undecided 
minds,  and  dependent  on  them,  as  they  think,  for  a 
livelihood.  They  may  give  that  undecided  mind 
much  of  their  own  inspiration,  plan  device,  invention, 
and  fertility  of  thought.  They  may  give  this  uncon- 
sciously. Because,  it  is  worth  repeating  many  times, 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


2  THE   SLAVERY   OF   FEAR. 

"  Thought  is  substance,  and  is  absorbed  by  one  mind 
from  another." 

The  person  so  ruled  may  have  the  superior  mind. 
Such  a  person  may  be  indispensable  to  the  fickle,  and 
possibly  unjust  and  tyrannical  employer.  If  taken 
away,  that  employer  would  feel  that  a  prop  had  been 
removed.  Yet  that  superior  mind  may  go  on,  year 
after  year,  in  slavery ;  giving  to  the  other  idea,  and 
seeing  it  but  half  carried  out,  or  imperfectly  carried 
out. 

No  shackles  are  so  heavy  as  these.  They  fetter  the 
spirit.  In  such  position  you  are  not  doing  your  own 
work.  You  are  not  carrying  out  your  own  design. 
You  may  be  trying  to  do  the  work  of  another,  when 
that  other  person  has  no  clear  idea  of  the  work  he 
wants  done  for  himself. 

This  is  one  of  the  heavy  prices  paid  for  depend- 
ency. If  you  have  no  other  view  in  life,  save  that 
of  being  a  servant,  or  an  assistant  on  wages,  you 
must  pay  more  or  less  of  this  penalty.  You  will  find 
it  really  less  costly  and  less  painful  to  start  some 
business  of  your  own,  no  matter  how  small  the  begin- 
ning. You  will  then  be  called  upon  to  take  respon- 
sibilities. If  you  fear  taking  them,  you  are  always  a 
slave.  If  you  know  that  you  are  the  brains  of  any 
business,  though  not  the  seeming  head,  demand  a  just 
price  for  your  work.  What  do  you  fear?  If  you 
take  the  brains  away,  will  the  business  go  on  success- 
fully? If  you  feel  that  you  are  robbed,  you  are 
equally  guilty  with  him  who  robs  you,  if  you  stand 
by  tamely  and  see  yourself  robbed. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  SLAVERY  OP  FEAR.  3 

To  work  and  live  in  fear  of  the  poorhouse,  is  to  be 
in  the  poorhouse.  You  would  not  feel  so  poor  if 
you  were  actually  there.  To  live  in  such  continual 
fear,  injures  mind  and  body.  Whatever  troubles  the 
mind,  is  certain  in  some  way  to  injure  the  body. 

You  cannot  think  your  clearest  thought  so  long  as 
you  are  in  the  slavery  of  any  fear.  Clear  thought 
and  plan  have  a  value  in  dollars  and  cents. 

If  you  come  under  the  control  of  a  whiffling,  unde- 
cided weathercock  order  of  mind,  if  you  absorb  the 
thought  of  such  a  mind,  you  will  be  whiffling  and 
undecided  yourself.  You  will  affect  those  who  come 
to  you  for  orders,  be  the  work  what  it  may,  as  you 
are  affected  yourself.  If  your  .  employer  does  not 
know  exactly  what  he  wants,  you  will  not  know 
exactly  what  you  want  of  others.  As  those  under 
you,  or  in  some  way  dependent  on  you,  are  so  affected, 
so  will  they  affect  in  turn  others  with  whom  they 
deal.  If  the  head  of  an  organization  or  business  or 
movement  is  whiffling,  whimsical,  and  uncertain, 
there  will  be  uncertainty  and  dissatisfaction  all  along 
his  line  of  control.  You  can  never  satisfy  such  a 
person,  because  that  person  is  never  satisfied  with 
himself. 

If  you  cannot  find  out  what  is  really  wanted  of  you, 
say  so.  Don't  try  to  do  for  any  when  they  do  not 
know  what  is  wanted  or  needed  to  be  done,  them- 
selves. 

Stick  by  your  own  plan.  If  you  see  a  good  reason 
for  any  step,  any  detail,  in  it,  no  matter  how  trivial, 
don't  allow  yourself  to  be  argued  out  of  it  by  another. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  THE   SLAVERY   OP  FEAE. 

The  kingdom  of  mind  is  full  of  tyrants.  They  want 
to  have  their  own  way,  simply  from  love  of  power. 
Very  possibly  they  are  not  aware  of  their  own  mo- 
tive. To  greater  or  less  extent,  all  of  us  may  be 
such  tyrants. 

You  can  ask  with  profit  for  information  of  many. 
You  can  ask  with  safety  for  opinion,  especially  re- 
garding your  own  purposes,  of  very  few.  The  most 
thoughtful,  considerate,  and  just  are  the  most  careful 
in  giving  opinion.  They  will  also  take  care  to  tell 
you  that  their  utterance  is  but  their  opinion.  Igno- 
rance, conceit,  and  injustice  are  full  of  dogmatic  ut- 
terance. Ignorance  speaks  as  it  feels  at  the  moment. 
Don't  mistake  utterance  of  this  sort  for  information. 
If  you  do,  you  will  absorb  that  conceited  thought, 
that  prejudice.  You  will  then  be  ruled  by  that  mind. 
You  may  be  thereby  led  to  abandon  what  would 
have  been  most  profitable  to  you. 

If  you  feel  yourself  the  superior,  and  allow  your- 
self to  be  thus  over-ruled,  or  influenced  in  any  way, 
by  an  inferior  mind,  you  are  crippling  your  own  suc- 
cess. You  derange  most  seriously  the  plans  for  your 
welfare  of  that  order  of  unseen  intelligence  which 
can  do  most  for  you.  You  set  in  motion  an  order  of 
forces  contrary  to  theirs.  In  so  doing,  you  oblige 
them  to  stop  aiding  you.  They  will  not  work  for 
you,  when  they  see  their  work  thrown  away. 

The  moment  you  allow  the  thought  of  another  to 
influence  you,  against  your  own  conviction,  feeling, 
or  intuition,  that  moment  you  lose  your  own  best 
thought.  You  commence  thinking  in  part  with  the 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   SLAVERY  OP   FEAR.  5 

other  person's  brains.  You  may  then  commence 
thinking  with  brains  below  yours  in  motive,  in  judg- 
ment, in  far-sightedness,  in  taste  and  discretion. 
You  have  muddied  your  own  clearer  intellect  with 
a  turbid  stream. 

The  person  so  swaying  you  has  an  invisible  fol- 
lowing of  minds  like  his  own.  When,  unconsciously 
perhaps,  you  surrender  your  thought  to  him,  you  let 
in  all  his  following  likewise,  to  hang  about,  sway,  and 
influence  you.  Worse,  still ;  they  will  bar  from  you 
your  own  better,  unseen  counsellors.  Because  these 
can  by  this  means  easily  be  driven  away.  They  are 
not  driven  away  willingly,  but  their  power  with  you 
may  be  limited.  That  power  depends  on  the  attitude 
of  mind  you  keep  toward  them.  If  you,  desiring  to 
be  all  yourself,  demand  the  wisest  and  best  counsel 
in  this  endeavor  to  be  yourself,  you  will  get  it. 
Keep  up  this  demand.  It  will  at  last  drive  off  any 
inferior  unseen  following. 

Your  own  highest  invisible  friends  can  and  will 
aid  you  in  your  endeavor  to  be  yourself.  They  can 
and  will  throw  chances  in  your  way,  in  whatever 
field  of  effort  you  wish  to  work.  They  cannot  work 
for  you  in  this  way,  so  long  as  you  are  to-day  absorb- 
ing the  thought  of  some  inferior  mind,  and  acting  it 
out,  and  perhaps  to-morrow  the  thought  of  another 
and  acting  that  out. 

If  you  want  a  ship  built  for  you,  you  don't  give  it 
in  charge  of  a  ship-builder  to-day,  and  the  builder  of 
a  scow  to-morrow.  Yet  such,  as  to  effect,  is  the 
condition  of  many  impressional  minds.  Ignorantly 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  THE   SLAVERY  OF  FEAR. 

taking  in,  or  ruled  by  the  thought  of  others,  they 
are  building  after  one  plan  to-day,  and  another  one 
to-morrow. 

You  cannot  speak  out  an  unwelcome  opinion  in  a 
circle  of  friends,  so  long  as  you  fear  such  speaking 
•will  cost  you  a  friend.  So  long  as  you  have  such 
a  fear  (and  it  be  the  time  and  place  to  speak  that 
truth),  and  you  are  prevented  by  such  fear  from 
speaking  it,  so  long  are  you  under  the  rule  of  that 
friend's  mind.  You  value  a  friendship  more  than 
a  truth.  You  barter  a  truth  for  the  good-will  of  a 
person.  Then  you  are  no  longer  free  or  independent. 
Unconsciously,  perhaps,  that  person  is  then  ruling 
you.  Yet,  so  ruling  you,  he  neither  respects  nor 
values  you  so  much  for  being  under  his  dominion. 
There  is  in  human  nature  an  inherent  love  and 
respect  for  whatever  is  free. 

Fear  cripples  the  spirit,  and  diseases  the  body. 
Fear  is  everywhere, — fear  of  want,  fear  of  starvation, 
fear  of  public  opinion,  fear  of  private  opinion,  fear 
that  what  we  own  to-day  may  not  be  ours  to-morrow, 
fear  of  sickness,  fear  of  death.  Fear  has  become  with 
millions  a  fixed  habit.  The  thought  is  everywhere. 
The  thought  is  thrown  on  us  from  every  direc- 
tion. Fear  makes  the  tyrant.  It  makes  the  merci- 
less master  the  inexorable  creditor.  "  I  fear,"  says 
the  man  of  millions,  "  that  unless  I  exact  my  rents  or 
dues,  that  I  can  no  longer  enjoy  the  mania  for  heap- 
ing up  millions,  which  do  me  no  good  but  the  thought 
of  owning  them."  —  "I  fear,"  says  his  agent,  " that 
unless  I  obey  my  master's  rigid  orders,  and  collect 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   SLAVERY   OF  FEAR.  7 

his  rents  and  dues,  that  I  Cannot  live."  Because  the 
agent  has  the  rich  man's  fear  thrown  on  him.  He 
absorbs  that  thought  from  him.  He  thinks  the  fear 
in  and  of  the  rich  man's  brain.  The  agent  must 
collect  rent  of  the  editor  or  the  minister.  He  hands 
to  them  the  fear  he  has  caught  of  the  rich  man. 
They  take  the  infection.  "I  cannot  print  this  truth," 
says  the  editor.  "I  cannot  preach  that,"  says  the 
minister,  "  because  readers  and  hearers  would  leave, 
and  then  where  would  be  the  money  to  pay  our 
rents?"  This  thought  of  fear  and  actual  unseen 
substance,  as  real  as  any  other  element  in  nature,  in 
this  way  dribbles  and  drains  from  the  rich  man's 
mind,  way  down  to  the  miserable  tenant  in  garret 
or  cellar.  It  ends  with  the  thief.  "  I  fear,"  he  says, 
"starvation  also."  He  puts  his  hand  directly  in  his 
neighbor's  pocket,  and  pulls  out  a  sixpence.  There 
is  no  difference,  save  in  method,  between  his  act  and 
that  of  the  ruling  spirit. 

"  I  fear,"  says  some  one  commencing  to  learn  an 
art,  "the  criticism  of  others  on  my  imperfect  methods 
in  that  art.  I  fear  their  ridicule."  Then  you  are 
ruled  by  them.  You  will  never  advance  so  fast  as 
when  you  do  not  care  for  what  they  say.  It  is  most 
desirable,  then,  to  get  rid  of  fear.  It  is  the  actual 
source  of  poverty  of  wealth,  and  poverty  of  health. 
To  live  in  continual  dread,  continual  cringing,  con- 
tinual fear  of  any  thing,  be  it  loss  of  love,  loss  of 
money,  loss  of  position  or  situation,  is  to  take  the 
readiest  means  to  lose  what  we  fear  we  shall. 

Does  it  help  you  pay  a  debt,  to  fear  the  creditor 

Tn oughts  are  Things. 


15  THE   SLAVERY  OF   FEAR. 

when  there  is  no  money  in"  your  purse  ?  Does  it  help 
you  make  a  living,  to  be  ever  in  fear  of  want  ?  Does 
it  help  you  to  health,  to  fear  disease?  No.  It  weak- 
sens  in  every  way. 

How  shall  we  get  rid  of  fear,  and  the  rule  over  us 
-of  other  minds  crippled  by  fear?  Attack  in  mind 
whatever  you  fear.  Commence  by  seeing  yourself  in 
•mind  as  brave.  See  yourself,  in  what  you  call  imagi- 
nation, as  calmly  defying  whatever  you  fear,  be  it  a 
man  or  a  woman,  be  it  a  debt  or  a  dreaded  possibil- 
ity. What  so  you  figure  to  yourself  in  mind  is  a 
reality.  Such  thinking  will  give  you  strength.  De- 
mand for  yourself  more  courage.  Ask  for  it.  Pray 
for  it,  and  the  quality  of  courage  will  come  to  you 
jnore  and  more,  and  what  so  comes  can  never  be  lost. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHAT  ARE  SPIRITUAL  GIFTS'/ 


THEKE  is  one  spirit,  one  power,  one  force,  in  the 
universe,  but  its  different  manifestations  or  channels 
of  operation  are  countless.  It  moves  the  breeze,  the 
ocean,  the  avalanche,  and  the  earth  in  its  orbit.  It 
moves  the  seed  to  grow,  the  plant  to  blossom,  the 
flower  to  color  itself  with  inimitable  hues.  It  colors 
the  bird's  plumage,  and  gives  power  to  its  wing.  It 
works  in  the  instinct,  or  lower  reason,  of  the  animal. 
Its  highest  known  expression  is  in  man,  because  in 
man  there  is  concentrated  the  most  of  this  force.  In 
other  and  unseen  orders  of  being,  it  is  concentrated 
as  to  volume,  and  power,  and  varieties  of  power,  as 
far  above  man,  as  man  is  above  the  mole. 

It  is  a  spiritual  gift,  which  when  matters  look  dark 
and  squally,  when  debts  are  pressing,  and  friends 
seem  to  fall  away,  and  business  falls  away  also,  that 
keeps  your  mind  in  a  mood  quite  as  buoyant  and 
cheerful  as  when  success  shines  on  you ;  and  when 
you  have  this  gift,  or,  in  other  words,  have  grown  to 
the  power  to  hold  continually  such  mood,  you  COM- 
MAND SUCCESS,  and  must  have  it ;  because  then  the 


Thoughts  are  Tilings. 


2  WHAT  ARE  SPIRITUAL  GIFTS? 

silent  force  of  your  mind  is  felt  by  other  determined 
minds,  be  your  body  sleeping  or  waking,  and  keeps 
them  interested  in  you,  and  working  in  some  way  in 
your  behalf.  When  so  you  hold  the  mood  of  confi- 
dence and  determination,  you  are  connected  spiritu- 
ally, or  by  unseen  element,  with  all  other  confident, 
determined,  and  pushing  minds.  You  become  a  part 
of  such  mind,  giving  to  it  of  your  own  force,  and  re- 
ceiving their  force  in  return,  and  you  are  then,  with 
them,  moving  forward  to  success. 

Shrewdness  in  business  is  a  spiritual  gift  or  power. 
It  involves  a  certain  business  prophetic  faculty  which 
knows  when  to  buy,  how  to  buy,  and  when  to  sell. 
It  involves  knowledge  of  human  nature,  —  of  know- 
ing, or  rather  feeling,  honesty  and  dishonesty  almost 
at  a  glance.  You  have  a  sense  which  feels  the  thought 
of  others,  and  gives  you  notice  by  such  feeling  whether 
their  thought  be  good  or  bad,  as  by  your  sense  of 
physical  touch,  you  know  the  difference  between  a 
rough  and  smooth  surface.  That  is  a  spiritual  power 
in  business  which  learns  to  economize  time  and 
strength,  and  thereby  accomplish  as  much  in  an  hour 
as  others  may  in  a  day.  Any  great  business  success 
is  gained  by  the  exercise  of  a  spiritual  power.  Spir- 
itual power  is  used  for  all  purposes,  and  is  the  only 
power  used.  It  can  be  used  on  a  high  or  low  plane 
of  motive. 

Spirituality  is  not  living  in  dreams,  or  living  in  the 
clouds,  or  having  a  pale  face  and  languid  air,  as  if 
the  things  of  this  earth  were  beneath  one's  serious 
consideration,  and  were  rather  endured  than  enjoyed. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHAT    ARE   SPIRITUAL  GIFTS?  3 

Spirituality  means  the  greatest  acuteness  of  intellect, 
the  greatest  foresight,  the  greatest  amount  of  spirit 
or  power  gathered  in  a  person,  and  the  wisest  expen- 
diture of  that  power.  It  means  the  greatest  govern- 
mental ability,  be  that  ability  exercised  in  the  small 
empire  of  a  household,  or  the  larger  empire  of  a  na- 
tion. Spiritual  gifts  mean  all  talents,  all  powers,  and 
all  methods  of  using  those  powers. 

That  is  a  spiritual  gift  which  finds  out  healing 
properties  in  plants,  roots,  and  herbs.  All  nature 
expressed  in  substance,  seen  of  the  physical  eye,  is 
an  expression  also  of  mind  or  force  ;  and  every  plant 
has  its  peculiar  kind  or  quality  of  that  force,  and  this, 
when  applied,  can  help  the  individual  spirit  to  drive 
out  disease.  But  all  seen  things  are  expressions  of 
the  lower  or  relatively  cruder  form  of  mind  or  spirit, 
and  therefore  have  a  limited  power;  and,  when  any 
material  remedy  is  applied,  the  main  dependence 
should  not  be  on  that  remedy,  but  on  the  power  of 
mind,  and,  above  all  things,  one's  own  mind  or  force, 
to  put  the  body  above  the  reach  of  disease.  I  apply 
clothing  to  my  body,  as  an  external  application  of 
wool  or  cotton  to  protect  that  body  from  cold.  But 
I  believe  in  the  power  of  mind  to  resist  cold,  and  be 
comfortable,  with  much  less  clothing  than  the  aver- 
age wear.  Your  spirit  can  by  degrees  attain  such 
power.  That  is  no  reason  why  I  should  lessen  the 
amount  of  clothing  in  cold  weather,  before  I  have 
grown  to  or  gathered  that  amount  of  force  which 
shall  so  resist  cold.  If  I  think  a  medicine  will  aid 
what  force  I  have  to  cure  the  body,  or,  in  other 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  WHAT   ARE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS? 

words,  to  add  its  peculiar  spiritual  strength  to  my 
own  spiritual  strength,  to  act  on  the  body,  I  think  it 
better  to  take  it.  But  for  that  reason,  I  should  not 
fly  to  a  pill  or  a  stimulant  at  the  first  sign  of  pain  or 
weakness,  but  turn  on  first  my  spiritual  or  mental 
force,  and  in  any  case  rely  first  and  last  on  that.  The 
gift  of  thought  healing  is  a  spiritual  gift.  It  belongs 
to  all  in  proportion  as  their  permanent  flow  of  thought 
is  pure,  cheerful,  determined,  vigorous,  decided,  and 
abounding  in  good-will  to  others.  That  order  of 
thought  sent  a  sick  person  is  a  real  element  or  force, 
and  has  power  to  give  that  person  strength.  If  you 
give  strength  from  so  healthy  a  source  as  healthy 
thought,  you  drive  out  disease,  or  lack  of  ease  to 
the  body.  Your  own  healthy  thought  aided  by  the 
healthy  thought  of  others,  is  real  substance,  and  has 
the  power  to  build  up  any  organ  which  is  sore  or 
inflamed,  and  wasting  away  through  lack  of  some 
element  necessary  to  it. 

All  pain  is  owing  to  an  absence  of  life  element  in 
the  part  affected.  The  power  is  then  lacking  to 
send  the  blood  through  that  part.  Blood  then  col- 
lects and  stagnates  there.  This  you  call  inflamma- 
tion. The  blood  is  not  the  real  life  of  the  body,  but 
only  the  conductor  of  its  real  unseen  life,  or  spirit ; 
and,  when  that  is  wanting,  the  conductor  or  messen- 
ger of  this  life  has  no  power  to  travel.  It  collects 
in  some  one  place,  and  the  effort  of  the  spirit  to 
drive  it  from  that  place  is  too  much  force  concen- 
trated in  that  one  place,  or  organ,  which  causes  lack 
of  ease,  or  pain ;  and  lack  of  ease,  or  pain,  implies  that 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHAT  ARE   SPIRITUAL  GIFTS?  5 

the  unseen  force  or  spirit  is  no  longer  equally  dis- 
tributed throughout  the  body,  but  is  acting  in  excess- 
on  some  one  part  of  it,  in  which  case  every  other 
organ  or  part  feels  the  lack  of  this  force,  and  is  con- 
sequently weak. 

Healthy  thought  can  revive  and  put  strength  in 
sick  bodies ;  and  that  is  the  reason  that  you,  if  sick, 
feel  so  much  better  from  the  visit  of  a  cheerful,  hope- 
ful, vigorous  person.  Such  a  person  gives,  and  you: 
from  him  or  her  receive  and  absorb  in  thought,  ele- 
ment life :  and  if  people  and  friends  about  sick-bedsy 
and  in  the  houses  of  the  sick,  would  at  least  try  to 
make  their  thought  hopeful,  strong,  cheerful ;  if 
they  would  keep  in  mind  that  the  spirit  of  the  sick 
person  was  as  strong  as  ever,  and  that  the  throes  of 
pain  came  only  through  the  spirit's  effort  to  regain* 
complete  possession  of  its  instrument,  the  body, — 
they  would,  in  sending  out  hopeful,  encouraging 
thought  to  that  spirit,  send  it  real  strengthening  ele- 
ment, and  help  it  very  much  to  make  the  body  well 
again.  They  would  then  be  using  their  spiritual 
power  to  aid  another  spirit  in  trying  to  repair  a  dam- 
aged body.  If,  instead  of  this,  every  one  about  the; 
sick-bed  is  sad,  dejected,  and  despondent,  they  send 
the  struggling  spirit  despondent  thought,  or  order 
of  force,  and  make  its  work  all  the  heavier.  They 
are  using  their  combined  spiritual  power  to  make  the 
struggle  of  the  spirit  all  the  harder.  Then  if  ten,  or 
twenty,  or  a  thousand,  or  an  hundred  thousand  friends 
of  the  sick  person  outside,  far  and  near,  are  also  de- 
spondent and  hopeless  as  to  that  person's  condition, 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  WHAT  ARE  SPIRITUAL  GIFTS? 

because  some  one  has  said  there  is  no  hope  and  the 
malady  is  incurable,  they  help  to  swell  the  volume  of 
despondent  thought  acting  on  that  patient's  spirit. 
They  work  their  spiritual  power  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion, and  that  power  is  always  the  greater  for  good  or 
ill,  for  the  life  or  the  death,  of  that  person's  body,  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  minds  sending  their 
force  or  thought  to  the  patient. 

The  gift  of  healing  can  and  should  be  used  co- 
operatively; and  if,  when  the  body  of  any  strong 
and  useful  spirit  is  overcome  by  disease,  all  minds 
would  direct  on  that  person  a  current  of  hopeful,  in- 
vigorating thought, —  thought  full  of  expectancy  of 
life  instead  of  expectancy  of  death,  and  desire  also 
that  when  the  spirit  again  controlled  its  body,  that  it 
might  learn  the  cause  of  its  disease,  and  so  be  on 
guard  against  any  repetition  of  it, — there  would  then 
soon  be  longer  useful  lives,  and  vigor  of  mind  and 
body  prolonged  to  periods  the  world  at  present  does 
not  dream  of. 

That  would  be  and  will  be  the  "  prayer  of  faith ;  " 
and  the  "  prayer  of  faith "  shall  save  the  sick,  that 
is,  faith  in  the  power  of  a  certain  quality  of  thought 
element  to  bring  strength,  and  repair  a  worn  or 
racked  or  strained  body,  and  in  real  though  unseen 
element  build  it  up  again.  That  is  the  power  of 
God,  or  the  infinite  spirit  of  good,  working  in  and 
through  us  to  cure  ourselves  and  others ;  and  this 
power  is  eventually  to  be  accumulated  by  all  of  us 
in  this  or  some  other  existence,  so  that  it  shall  always 
keep  our  bodies  in  good  repair,  free  from  pain,  and 

T2ioughts  are  Things. 


WHAT   ARE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS?  7 

fuller  and  fuller  of  life  and  vigor.  It  will  make  our 
minds  as  healthy  as  our  bodies,  and  as  free  from  hope- 
lessness, gloom,  dejection,  or  discouragement,  or  any 
other  form  of  MENTAL  DISEASE  ;  and  this  ultimate 
result  is  implied  in  the  saying  that  "  God  shall  wipe 
all  tears  from  all  eyes." 

The  world  is  steadily  growing  to  this  result,  and 
medical  science  makes  less  and  less  use  of  drugs  as 
compared  with  the  past,  for  man  is  wiser  than  he 
realizes  himself,  and  is  always  growing  more  and 
more  away  from  an  entire  dependence  on  the  material, 
and  leans  more  and  more  unconsciously  on  the 
unseen  or  spiritual,  elements  of  Nature.  Many  a 
physician  of  to-day,  bright,  hopeful,  cheerful,  and 
determined  in  mind,  owes  his  successful  practice 
quite  as  much  to  the  current  of  strong,  hopeful, 
cheerful,  vigorous  thought  he  sends  the  sick  man. 
or  woman,  as  he  does  to  the  medicines  he  gives 
them. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  doctors.  One  nurses  the 
maladies  of  the  patient,  the  other  nurses  the  patient's 
body ;  one  keeps  the  malady  alive,  the  other  makes 
the  body  alive ;  one  keeps  the  malady  in  the  body, 
the  other  sends  it  out  of  the  body.  Both  doctors 
work  their  spiritual  gift  on  the  patient,  but  in  very 
different  ways  and  with  different  results. 

That  is  a  spiritual  power  or  gift,  which,  when  you 
have  formed  a  plan  or  purpose  in  your  mind,  causes 
you  to  hold  to  it  and  not  be  led,  swayed,  influenced, 
cajoled,  tempted,  jeered,  or  ridiculed  out  of  it  by 
others.  If  you  have  resolved  to  be  something,  in 

Thouglits  are  Things. 


8  WHAT    ARE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS? 

art  or  business,  greater  and  higher  than  you  now 
seem  to  others,  it  will  keep  you  to  that  resolve.  The 
man  or  woman  who  succeeds  must  always  in  mind  or 
imagination  live,  move,  think,  and  act  as  if  they  had 
gained  that  success,  or  they  never  will  gain  it. 
Genuine  kings  or  queens  in  the  empire  of  mind  will 
think  as  highly  of  themselves,  and  value  themselves 
as  much,  when  compelled  temporarily  to  take  what 
the  world  calls  an  humble  place,  as  if  upon  their 
thrones.  Those  about  them  feeling  this  thought  of 
self-appreciation  will  always  pay  them  the  respect 
due  them.  Such  kings  and  queens  will  always  by 
force  of  their  spiritual  gift  gravitate  to  whatever 
station  at  or  near  the  top  they  belong.  They  will 
do  this  through  the  silent  force  of  mind,  or  the  quiet 
inood  of  resolve  firmly  held  to,  more  than  by  any  use 
of  the  body-  The  body  is  to  be  used  ONLY  when  the 
spiritual  force  or  clear  sight  sees  the  right  thing,  the 
right  time,  and  the  right  place,  in  which  or  on  which 
to  use  it,  even  as  the  carpenter  uses  his  saw  when  he 
has  measured  and  decided  what  to  cut  with  it.  If 
he  sawed  boards  indiscriminately,  he  would  "cut 
every  thing  to  waste  "  and  build  nothing,  and  that 
is  what  thousands  of  people  do  with  their  bodies. 
They  put  its  force  on  little  things,  fret  over  little 
things ;  and  when  their  industry  for  a  whole  morning 
has  swept  every  atom  of  dust  out  of  the  room  cor- 
ners, scoured  the  bottoms  of  all  the  tin  pans,  fretted 
an  hour  because  the  letter  he  expected  didn't  come, 
passed  another  hour  over  a  desk  full  of  papers  to 
find  another  letter  which  amounts  to  nothing,  what 

Thoughts  are  TMngs. 


WHAT   ARE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS?  9 

has  he  or  she  accomplished  save  to  fritter  away  their 
force  or  spiritual  power  for  nothing  ? 

You  must  be  what  most  you  live  in  thought,  since 
it  is  your  thought  that  draws  its  material  correspond- 
ence to  you.  If  in  mind  you  abase  yourself  before 
another's  talent,  or  their  grander  style  of  living,  or 
are  over-awed  by  their  pretentiousness  into  a  sort 
of  envious  humility,  or  into  that  sinful  self-deprecia- 
tion which  is  ever  saying,  "  I  can  never  stand  there," 
you  place  the  greatest  of  barriers  to  standing  there. 
Look  always  on  the  best  things  the  world  can  give 
as  if  they  were  yours,  —  not  the  houses,  carriages, 
and  finer  clothes  of  others  as  yours,  but  others 
like  unto  them  when  you  earn  them ;  and  earn  them 
and  have  them  you  can,  if  you  have  sufficient  faith 
in  the  spiritual  law  or  mental  condition  of  mind 
which  brings  these  things,  and  is  the  only  force 
which  really  ever  brings  them  to  any  one. 

It  is  not  wrong  to  own  and  enjoy  the  best  things 
of  this  earth.  It  is  a  necessity  and  a  benefit  that  all 
your  finer  tastes  should  have  what  they  demand. 
But  there  are  just  methods  and  unjust  methods  of 
getting  the  goods  of  earth.  In  other  words,  there 
are  wise  methods  and  unwise  methods  of  getting 
what  we  need.  Injustice  is  but  another  word  for 
ignorance,  or  lack  of  wisdom.  You  will  not  walk  off 
a  precipice  in  broad  daylight;  you  are  very  likely 
to  walk  off  one  in  the  dark.  Neither  will  you  com- 
mit any  act,  when  you  see  more  and  more  clearly 
it  is  going  to  harm  you,  or  be  unprofitable  in  some 
way. 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


10  WHAT  ABE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS? 

It  is  no  benefit,  but  an  injury  to  you,  to  live  in  a 
hovel,  or  wear  seedy  clothes,  or  eat  inferior  food,  or 
be  compelled  to  live  among  coarse  and  vulgar  peo- 
ple. The  Christ  never  preached  that  it  was  a  duty 
to  live  poorly.  He  did  preach  going  without  purse 
or  scrip,  and  selling  goods  and  giving  to  the  poor ; 
and  in  the  very  doing  of  this,  he  was  inferring  that 
perfect  faith  in  the  cultivation  of  that  state  of  mind 
or  order  of  thought  which  would  bring  all  things  as 
they  were  needed.  He  did  in  substance  say,  "  Seek 
ye  first  to  put  your  mind,  so  far  as  you  may,  in  the 
line  of  correspondence  and  rapport  with  God,  or  the 
infinite  force  of  good ;  and  when  you  do  this,  there 
will  come  to  you  your  share,  and  an  ever  increasing 
one,  of  spiritual  power,  which  will  bring  you  house 
and  lands."  And  I  see  no  reason  why  there  should 
not  be  included  houses  and  carriages  and  vestments, 
and  all  that  can  best  please  eye  or  ear,  or  any  of 
the  senses.  Splendor  does  not  degrade.  If  it  did,  it 
would  injure  us  to  look  on  a  gorgeous  sunset.  If 
you  are  one  with  God,  or  with  the  infinite  and  never 
to  be  comprehended  power  which  governs  endless 
universe,  you  are  then  in  the  line  of  the  highest 
spiritual  power.  You  cannot  then  be  a  pauper  in 
any  sense,  no  more  than  God  is  a  pauper.  And  this 
infinite  power,  when  diligently  sought,  gives  "good 
gifts "  to  those  who  seek ;  and  "  good  gifts "  are 
neither  mouldy  bread,  nor  mouldy  clothes,  nor  rotten 
houses. 

Prophecy  is  a  spiritual  gift,  and  many  more  peo- 
ple have  the  gift  of  prophecy  than  realize  it  them- 

^ 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHAT  ARE   SPIRITUAL   GIFTS?  11 

selves.  Your  spirit,  your  higher  self,  has  the  power 
of  giving  you  impressions  as  to  proper  methods  of 
doing  business.  It  sometimes  warns  you  on  your 
first  meeting  with  people,  that  there  is  in  them  some 
defect  of  character  which  you  need  to  be  on  guard 
against.  You  find  if  you  despise  this,  your  own 
self-prophesying,  and  are  governed  entirely  by  the 
counsel  or  the  fear  of  others,  that  you  are  oppressed 
or  kept  down,  and  have  neither  that  freedom  nor 
independence  of  life  you  would  have,  and  will  have, 
when  you  learn  to  trust  your  own  intuition,  your 
internal  teacher,  the  only  reliable  teacher  you  will 
ever  have  in  this  or  any  other  existence,  because 
that  teacher  is  your  own  share  and  part  and  rela- 
tionship with  God,  or  the  infinite  power  of  good; 
and  the  more  it  is  cultivated,  the  clearer  will  you 
see,  and  the  more  will  it  do  for  you.  And  when  men 
or  women  believe  in  themselves,  and  have  learned 
to  trust  to  their  own  power  to  do  any  thing,  and, 
while  accepting  helps  from  others,  regard  always 
the  helps  as  secondary  to  their  own  power  for  push- 
ing things  ahead,  it  means  they  have  learned  that 
they  are  really  parts  of  the  Infinite  Power,  and 
that,  as  parts,  they  have  more  or  less  of  the  qualities 
of  that  power  for  doing,  for  accomplishing,  any  thing 
they  may  set  about. 

All  minds  are  prophets  to  themselves,  and  in  their 
own  country,  or  would  be  were  not  the  prophesy- 
ings  so  much  despised,  and  the  internal  teacher  so 
often  cast  out,  so  that  at  last  your  own  prophet  may 
lose  the  power  to  direct  you  aright ;  and  you  may 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


12  WHAT   ABE   SPIRITUAL  GIFTS? 

give  all  the  honor  to  some  one  who  is  directing  you 
wrong. 

Your  mind  or  spirit  lives  in  advance  of  your 
earthly  or  material  life  or  sense.  With  its  finer  and 
superior  senses,  it  may  in  an  inconceivably  short 
time  do  things,  see  things,  and  in  finer  element  live 
in  things  or  results  accomplished,  which  it  must 
accomplish,  also,  here  on  the  coarser  stratum  of  life, 
and  with  the  cruder  and  coarser  physical  senses. 
There  is  this  the  real  physical  world  about  us,  and 
there  is  also  as  real  an  unseen  world  of  unseen  ele- 
ment near  us,  which  in  all  respects  is  an  exact  type 
of  the  world  of  thought,  or  ideal  of  every  individual ; 
and  the  worlds  of  two  individuals  living  in  the  same 
house,  and  meeting  daily  at  the  same  table,  may  be 
as  different  as  the  world  of  the  tropic  from  that  of 
the  arctic  zone.  Every  event  in  your  seen  world, 
which,  as  to  your  surroundings  and  manner  of  life,  is 
an  outgrowth  of  your  thought,  is  preceded  by  a  simi- 
lar event  in  your  unseen  world ;  and  it  is  the  spiritual 
eye  of  prophecy  which  sees  that  event  in  the  spirit- 
ual world  sometimes  ages,  sometimes  years,  ere  it 
happens  here.  It  may  see  it  for  another  as  well  as 
itself.  It  is  for  this  reason,  that  sometimes,  in  the 
doing  of  a  thing,  you  have  a  sudden  flash  of  thought, 
that  somewhere,  and  at  some  time,  you  were  doing 
that  thing  before  under  precisely  similar  circum- 
stances. You  are  carrying  out  in  the  physical  what 
you  have  already  carried  out  in  the  spiritual  realm, 
and  with  your  spiritual  body,  and  among  the  spirit- 
ual bodies  of  the  people  you  may  not  at  that  time 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


WHAT   ARE  SPIRITUAL   GIFTS?  13 

know  physically,  but  were  to  know  physically  in  the 
future.  If  you  regard  your  own  spirit's  promptings 
and  prophesyings  as  idle  fancies  or  vagaries,  or  are 
guided  largely  by  the  opinions  of  others,  you  will 
not  prevent  the  happier  event  or  phase  of  life  you 
are  to  realize  in  the  future,  —  if  not  in  this,  in  some 
other  physical  existence,  —  from  happening.  But 
you  make  it  slower  in  coming.  You  can  have  your 
inevitable  future  happiness  delayed  through  many 
causes.  You  can  never  have  its  possibility  destroyed. 
The  "  you "  of  to-day  may  use  another  body  a  hun- 
dred years  hence,  and  the  "you"  of  a  hundred 
years  hence  will  surely  have  more  power  than  the 
"  you  "  of  to-day ;  and  there  is  a  time  when  every  spirit 
will  attain  to  a  certain  power,  that  it  shall  be  able  to 
look  through,  or  rather  call  back,  all  its  past  physical 
existences,  from  its  lowest  up  to  its  present  highest, 
and  see  them  all  as  one  life, — the  different  bodies  you 
have  used  during  all  these  lives  being  analagous  to 
the  successive  suits  of  clothes  you  wear  in  this  one 
earth-life. 

All  things  and  all  events  do  not  have  their  origin 
here  in  this  world,  but  in  their  spiritual  world. 
Things  here  in  material  are  as  the  shadows  of  the  real 
thing  in  the  spiritual,  and  as  shadows  relatively  in- 
ferior. As  the  spiritual  world  advances,  so  do  we 
catch  the  impulse  and  inspiration  of  that  advance.  It 
is  our  spiritual  world  that  warms  all  things  into  life 
here,  and  builds  them  up  here,  even  as  the  material 
sun  sends  us  that  element  which  warms  into  life, 
plant,  animal,  and  man;  and  as  the  sun  element 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


14  WHAT   ARE   SPIRITUAL  GIFTS? 

through  myriads  of  ages  has  been  growing  finer  and 
finer,  and  as  a  result  building  plant,  animal,  and  man 
into  finer  forms,  so  is  the  spiritual  element  or  power 
ever  acting  on  this  planet,  growing  finer  and  more 
powerful. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE  PROCESS  OF  RE-EMBODIMENT. 


THE  fact  that  one  person  may  gain  such  a  mes- 
meric control  of  another  as  entirely  to  absorb  that 
other's  identity,  and  to  make  the  individual  operated 
on  for  a  time  subject  to  the  will  of  the  operator,  see- 
ing exactly  as  the  operator  desires  him  to  see,  tasting 
as  he  would  have  him  taste,  and  being  in  imagination 
whatever  he  desires  him  to  be,  is  a  clew  and  corner- 
stone in  getting  at  the  mystery  of  re-incarnation, 
whereby  a  spirit  is  ushered  into  another  life  on  earth 
in  entire  forgetfulness  of  its  past  existence  or  iden- 
tity, even  as  the  subject  under  control  of  the  mes- 
merizer  is  for  a  period  entirely  oblivious  of  his  own 
individual  self  and  existence. 

A  mortal  may  mesmerize  a  spirit,  and  this  may  be 
done  unconsciously.  A  woman,  before  and  after  con- 
ception, may  dwell  in  thought  much  upon  some  real 
or  ideal  character,  and  this  may  attract  to  her  that 
very  character  in  spirit  life.  There  are  no  ideals  in 
the  wordly  sense.  The  ideal  in  thought  represents 
some  living  type  in  the  spirit.  The  highest  character 
of  which  you  are  capable  of  conceiving  has  a  repre- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


i2  THE  PROCESS   OF   RE-EMBODIMENT. 

sentative  in  spirit,  and  your  present  highest  concep- 
tion may  be  relatively  imperfect.  Hence,  your  hero, 
your  ideal,  the  actual  reality  in  spirit  life  attracted 
to  you,  may  still  be  incomplete,  your  incompleteness 
blinding  you  to  his  defects. 

Such  a  spirit  may  be  attracted  to  a  woman  before 
her  child  is  born.  It  may  be  the  spirit  of  some  one 
who  was  very  prominent  in  an  earth  life.  It  may 
have  been  a  poet,  a  philosopher,  a  warrior,  a  states- 
man, a  great  artist.  That  spirit  may  be  very  un- 
"happy.  It  may  be  seeking  rest  and  rinding  none. 
It  may,  through  its  imperfectness,  be  unable  to  come 
near  those  very  dear  to  it  in  the  life  of  its  former 
l>ody.  On  earth,  spirits  of  the  body  may  come  AP- 
PARENTLY in  close  association.  Much,  then,  may  be 
inflicted  by  one  and  endured  by  the  other.  One  side 
of  a  husband's  nature  may  be  harsh,  unfeeling,  incon- 
siderate, and  tyrannical,  when  the  wife  is  always 
gentle,  considerate,  and  uncomplaining.  In  spirit  life 
they  cannot  again  unite,  until  the  defects  on  one  side 
or  the  other  have  been  cured.  Spirits  cannot  come 
into  close  and  permanent  association  unless  their  re- 
lationship be  real.  It  cannot  be  assumed. 

The  woman  so  dwelling  much  in  thought  on  some 
person  in  spirit  life  attracts  that  spirit,  and  gives  to 
it  the  only  rest  it  can  find.  You  will  here  naturally 
love  to  be  where  you  are  much  admired  and  made  to 
feel  at  home.  It  is  precisely  the  same  with  the  spirit. 
"When  you  entertain  some  spirit  in  the  thought  of 
Appreciation  and  admiration,  when  you  read  of  their 
lives,  or  dwell  on  their  deeds  or  utterances,  and  are 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   PKOCESS    OF   RE-EMBODIMENT.  3 

thrilled  by  them,  you  are  often  thrilled  by  the  pres- 
ence of  that  very  spirit.  Because,  as  you  have  sent 
out  your  thought  or  spirit  to  him,  he  sends  his  in  re- 
turn, responsive  to  yours,  and  in  proportion  to  the 
intensity  of  your  admiration  will  be  the  concentra- 
tion of  that  spirit  upon  yours,  and  the  nearness  of 
its  presence. 

The  spirit  in  question  so  attracted  to  the  woman 
at  the  period  of  which  we  speak,  and  able  to  find  no 
other  rest,  may  at  last,  through  such  concentration 
of  interest,  be  absolutely,  though  unconsciously,  mes- 
merized by  her.  It  attaches  itself  permanently  to 
her.  It  is  unable  to  leave  her.  It  comes  at  last  to 
see  through  her  eyes  and  hear  through  her  ears.  Its 
opinions  are  swayed  and  tinged  by  her  opinions  more 
and  more,  until  at  last  it  ceases  to  have  any  of  its 
own.  The  condition  of  mind  so  thrown  upon  the 
spirit  may  be  seen  all  about  us  in  greater  or  less  de- 
gree. Thousands  lose  more  or  less  of  their  individu- 
ality through  the  influence  of  others.  Unconsciously, 
they  think  another's  thoughts,  hold  another's  opin- 
ions, see  with  another's  eyes.  Mesmeric  control 
means  only  thought  control.  To  be  much  with 
another  person,  to  have  little  other  association,  to 
be  dependent  for  one's  happiness  entirely  on  one 
association,  involves  the  danger  of  the  mesmeric  or 
thought  control  of  that  person ;  in  other  words,  of 
thinking  their  thoughts  and  holding  their  opinions 
instead  of  your  own.  Such  control  may  be  held 
unconsciously  by  the  other,  or  it  may  be  held  con- 
sciously. It  is  to  be  guarded  against  by  variety  of 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4  THE   PKOCESS   OP   RE-EMBODIMENT. 

association  and  periods  of  solitude,  whereby  we  may 
"  find  our  real  selves." 

So  absorbed  in  the  woman,  the  spirit's  mind  drifts 
towards  what  most  occupies  her  attention.  That 
naturally  would  be  the  child  she  is  to  bring  into  the 
world,  or  in  other  words,  the  new  organization  form- 
ing within  her.  It  becomes  attached  to  it  by  a  spirit- 
ual link.  In  effect,  the  woman  has  unconsciously 
gained  a  total  mesmeric  control  of  the  spirit.  She 
has  sent  that  spirit  into  a  mesmeric  sleep  or  state. 
In  such  state  the  spirit  has  already  forgotten  itself 
and  its  past  existence.  It  is  in  a  sense  but  a  part  of 
the  woman,  doing  and  thinking  as  she  wills.  It  is 
then  linked  by  a  spiritual  tie  to  the  child,  because 
the  woman's  aspiration  may  be  for  a  child  like  her 
ideal,  the  steady  flow  of  thought  in  such  desire  form- 
ing this  spiritual  link.  A  flow  of  thought  means  a 
flow  of  substance,  as  real  as  any  we  see  and  feel. 
A  flow  of  thought  between  you  and  another  person 
is  an  unseen  link  between  you  and  that  other  person, 
no  matter  how  far  distant  are  your  bodies. 

The  child  body  is  then  born  with  an  actually 
mesmerized  spirit  linked  to  it,  not  that  the  spirit  is 
within  the  child's  body.  No  spirit  is  actually  en- 
closed in  any  human  body.  Its  nucleus  is  there, 
but  a  spirit  is  an  organization  which  reaches  far  out 
from  the  body.  A  spirit  is  wherever  it  sends  its 
thought. 

Send  all  your  thought  in  revery  to  any  place,  and 
most  of  your  real  self  will  be  in  that  place. 

The  body  is  an   organization  distinct  and  apart 

Thoughts  are  Things, 


THE  PROCESS   OF   HE-EMBODIMENT.  5 

from  the  spirit.  It  is  simply  the  instrument  used  by 
the  spirit  in  the  earth  state  of  existence.  Being  in  an 
earth  life,  the  spirit  needs  an  instrument  of  earth  in 
order  to  adapt  itself  to  the  requirements  of  the  earth 
life ;  as  when  you  go  down  in  a  coal-mine,  you  need 
a  coarse  miner's  suit  of  clothes  for  use  in  the  mine, 
rather  than  satin  or  broadcloth.  In  this  sense  the 
body  is  a  protection  to  the  spirit  in  its  earth  life  ;  and 
spirits  who  lose  their  bodies  before  reaching  a  certain 
stage  of  knowledge  and  consequent  power  feel  and 
suffer  much  from  such  loss,  because  the  spiritual 
body  or  spirit,  obliged  by  reason  of  its  immaturity 
to  remain  on  the  earth  (as  very  many  are  obliged  to 
remain),  may  feel  and  suffer  intensely  from  the 
thought  of  the  mortals  about  it.  It  is  "  sensitive  " 
to  a  degree  which  can  hardly  be  realized  here.  Any 
person  exceedingly  impressional,  and  so  made  to  feel 
pleasant  or  unpleasant  by  the  presence  of  others,  ac- 
cording to  their  nature  or  disposition,  may  compre- 
hend to  some  extent  how  weak  spirits,  drawn  by  an 
attraction  they  cannot  resist  towards  certain  people, 
may  be  made  to  suffer.  The  body  with  all  its  ail- 
ments, resulting  through  ignorance  of  spiritual  law, 
is  still  a  protection  to  our  immature  spirit  against  the 
power  of  evil  thought. 

It  is  simply,  then,  a  new  body  for  the  spirit's  use 
that  is  furnished  by  the  mother.  Yet  this  body  has 
a  certain  life  of  its  own.  It  is  analagous  to  the  life 
of  a  plant.  Like  a  tree,  it  has  its  youth,  its  matu- 
rity, and  its  decay.  Were  the  spirit  possessed  of 
sufficient  knowledge,  it  could  arrest  this  decay,  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  THE   PROCESS   OF   HE-EMBODIMENT. 

keep  its  instrument  so  long  as  it  desired,  not  only 
in  a  condition  of  maturity,  but  of  ever-increasing 
vigor.  It  would  do  this  by  sending  itself  (that  is, 
its  thought)  into  the  higher  spirit  life,  and,  through 
such  line  or  ray  of  thought  as  a  connecting  link, 
draw  to  itself  supplies  of  the  life-giving  element 
belonging  to  that  region  of  spirit.  One  name  for 
this  process  is  "aspiration."  In  other  words,  it  is 
the  desire  or  prayer  or  demand  for  the  highest  and 
best.  This  mental  action  is  as  much  based  on  a 
scientific  law  as  is  the  attraction  of  gravitation.  It 
is  the  actual  sending  of  a  part  of  our  real  being  (the 
spirit)  to  a  place  from  whence  it  draws  fresh  supplies 
of  life.  The  thought  we  so  send  upward  is  as  much 
a  real  thing,  though  invisible,  as  a  telegraph  wire, 
and,  like  a  telegraph  wire,  it  is  an  actual  conductor 
of  life  to  us.  It  is  also  the  wire  sending  us  messages 
and  knowledge  of  methods  for  increasing  such  life 
and  power. 

The  spirit  so  linked  to  a  new  body  is  not  a  "  new 
being."  It  is  the  same  spirit  having  a  new  instru- 
ment to  work  through,  but  it  is  still  a  spirit,  in  a 
sense  asleep.  The  thought  power  of  the  mother 
still  remains  upon  it  after  the  new  body  comes  into 
the  world ;  for  it  is  influenced  by  all  the  mother's 
thought,  and  her  errors  in  thought,  and  the  errors 
and  ignorance  in  thought  of  all  about  it.  It  is  still 
a  spirit  under  the  mesmeric  influence  of  the  operator 
or  operators,  these  being  the  mother  and  those  in 
close  association  with  her.  The  mesmeric  or  thought 
power  of  several,  focussed  on  one  person,  is  propor- 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   PROCESS   OF   KE-EMBODIMENT.  T 

tionately  greater  than  that  of  one  mind.  All  this  is 
brought  to  bear  on  the  spirit.  It  may  in  its  last 
body  have  been  a  Catholic,  a  Jew,  a  Mohammedan. 
But  if  the  mother  and  those  about  it  be  Protestants, 
it  may  also  be  Protestant,  simply  because  the  thought 
of  all  about  it  influences  it  to  such  belief. 

While  the  body  is  very  young  the  spirit  can  make 
but  little  use  of  it.  In  the  year-old  babe,  it  is  in 
effect  but  a  fragment  of  the  old  spirit  that  animates 
the  new  body.  When  it  cries  for  food,  or  is  an- 
noyed by  reason  of  any  discomfort,  it  is  as  if  yoir 
pinched  or  pricked  the  body  of  a  full-grown  person 
during  sleep.  There  is  just  enough  animation  or 
spirit  left  in  the  sleeper's  body  to  protest  with  a  cry 
or  a  movement  akin  to  that  of  the  child.  Because, 
in  reality,  during  sound,  healthy  sleep,  your  spirit,, 
your  real  self,  is  not  with  your  body.  It  is  abroad, 
roaming  about,  seeing  other  spirits  in  other  places, 
and  only  connected  with  the  body  by  a  link. 

The  spirit  linked  to  the  new  body  during  the 
period  called  childhood  is  still  mesmerized.  It  is  not 
its  real  self.  It  cannot,  to  any  extent,  take  advantage 
of  its  past  experience ;  that  is  eclipsed  by  the  wills 
of  the  operators.  If  it  be  a  strongly  marked  spirit^ 
and  one  having  passed  through  many  previous  re- 
embodiments,  it  will,  as  it  grows  up,  and  comes  more 
and  more  under  the  influence  of  other  minds,  begin 
gradually  to  show  something  of  its  real  self.  It  will 
internally  protest  and  antagonize  against  much  of 
the  opinion  about  it.  It  will  have  a  thousand' 
thoughts,  which  it  soon  learns  not  to  express  to 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


8  THE  PROCESS   OF   RE-EMBODIMENT. 

others,  because  they  will  be  termed  "  wild  and  vision- 
ary." These  are  indeed  visionary,  but  real  visions. 
They  are  the  promptings  of  the  soul.  They  are  the 
Teachings  out  of  the  real  self,  the  spirit,  towards  what 
is  indeed  true,  despite  the  hamperings  of  the  thought 
influence  about  it. 

The  new  body  given  it  may  be  an  imperfect  one. 
As  the  seeds  of  stunted  plants  produce  other  plants 
inferior  in  quality,  so  are  bodies  brought  forth  im- 
perfect. The  thought  influence  of  those  about  it  may 
aggravate  such  ph}Tsical  imperfection ;  that  is,  if  the 
parents  are  always  thinking  disease,  they  show  dis- 
ease in  the  child.  A  mother  dwelling  on  her  com- 
plaints bequeaths  those  ailments  to  her  child.  The 
spirit  is  often  actually  mesmerized  into  the  belief 
that  it  has  a  weak  stomach  or  weak  lungs.  The 
parent  who  dwells  even  in  the  desire  for  alcohol  will, 
in  this  way,  bequeath  the  appetite  for  liquor  on  the 
child,  though  he  may  not  drink  a  drop.  This  is  the 
real  cause  of  what  are  termed  "inherited  diseases." 
They  are  not  inheritances  of  the  body.  They  are 
inheritances  of  the  predominant  thought  of  those 
most  about  it  while  young.  Did  the  parents,  though 
afflicted  themselves  with  diseases,  think  health,  and 
combat  the  tendency  to  think  of  their  ailments,  they 
would  gradually  cure  themselves,  and  bequeath  health 
to  their  children,  despite  the  infant's  physical  imper- 
fection at  birth,  which  is  also  a  result  thrown  on  it  by 
the  mother's  thought,  or  the  thought  of  those  about  it. 

So  the  spirit,  thus  furnished  with  a  new  body,  may 
come  again  into  the  world  to  run  its  race,  weighed 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


THE   PROCESS   OF   RE-EMBODIMENT.  9 

down  from  the  start  with  a  new  load  of  error.  Not 
in  a  sense  its  real  self,  asleep,  and  insensible  of  the 
powers  it  may  have  used  and  proven  for  itself  in  a 
recently  past  existence ;  doomed  to  an  enslavement  of 
surrounding  thought  influence  ;  habituated  for  years 
to  such  influence,  till  such  habit  chains  it  to  a  rut  of 
thought ;  taught  that  it  is  nothing  but  the  body  it 
uses ;  educated  to  deride  nearly  all  spiritual  power, 
and  spirit  itself,  as  nonsense ;  cursed  with  appetites, 
possibly  thrown  upon  it  by  the  minds  of  others,  in 
the  manner  stated  above ;  the  spirit  and  genius  of  a 
Napoleon,  a  Byron,  or  a  Shakspeare  may  be  dragged 
about  by  a  wretched  body,  diseased,  dissipated ;  a 
vagabond,  living  in  what  is  literally  a  wretched  dream. 
This  dream  may  continue  through  successive  re-em- 
bodiments, unless  it  can  be  brought  under  the  influ- 
ence of  some  thought  which  knows  the  truth.  Even 
then  the  awakening  to  know  and  realize  that  truth 
may  be  difficult,  so  vast  and  complicated  is  the  process 
of  de-education  to  be  undergone;  so  many  are  the 
false  ideas  it  holds ;  so  great  is  the  tendency  in  all 
it  thinks,  to  think  away  from  the  truth ;  so  strong 
is  the  power  of  all  the  thought  about  it,  so  to  put 
it  in  the  wrong  current  of  thought ;  so  little  does  it 
know  of  the  real  laws  and  forces  in  nature  ;  so  incred- 
ulous must  it  naturally  be  of  the  truths  we  here 
attempt  to  tell ;  so  absolutely  fabulous  to  it  must 
seem  the  fact,  that  what  it  has  deemed  its  real  self 
is  not  its  real  self,  no  more  than  would  be  your  ampu- 
tated arm  yourself. 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


RE-EMBODIMENT  UNIVERSAL  IN  NATURE. 


ALL  forms  of  life  are  results  of  a  continued  series 
of  re-embodiments  in  what  we  call  matter.  We  may 
call  matter  the  cruder  form  of  spirit,  so  organized  as 
to  be  visible  to  the  physical  eye. 

Animals,  birds,  fish,  and  reptiles  are  re-embodied. 
To  deny  a  spirit  to  one  form  of  intelligence  is  to 
deny  it  for  all  forms,  man  included.  The  animal 
re-appears  in  a  series  of  births,  each  birth  giving  to 
its  spirit  a  new  form.  Each  of  these  is  a  slight  im- 
provement on  the  last,  if  the  animal  is  in  its  wild  or 
natural  state.  Progression,  improvement,  and  con- 
tinual change  from  a  coarse  to  a  finer  organization, 
are  not  confined  to  man. 

In  pre-historic  ages  there  existed  those  immense 
clumsy  beasts,  birds,  reptiles,  and  fish,  whose  bones 
now  prove  that  they  lived.  These  are  the  unwieldy 
parents  of  our  present  races  of  animals.  The  spirit 
of  a  mammoth  living  countless  ages  ago  may  now 
exist  in  the  elephant,  deer,  or  wild  horse.  It  is  the 
refined  spirit,  using  a  body  lesser  in  size,  finer  in 
quality,  more  graceful,  and  more  agile.  It  is  the  re- 

Tbonghts  are  Things. 


2          BE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL   IN   NATURE. 

suit  of  the  unconscious  tendency  in  all  forms  of  life 
to  the  finer  and  better.  When  the  spirit  of  the 
clumsy,  wallowing,  sluggish  reptile  or  mammoth  was 
using  its  body,  it  had  always  the  desire  for  an  organ- 
ization or  instrument  which  it  could  move  about  with 
greater  freedom.  It  felt  its  tons  of  flesh  and  bones 
as  an  incumbrance.  When  that  spirit  had  worn  out 
one  body  and  had  found  another,  this  desire  still  re- 
mained. Desire  or  demand  will  always  shape  the 
body  in  accordance  with  the  ruling  wish  of  the  spirit. 
Such  shaping  is  of  course  very  slow,  as  we  compute 
time.  But  time  is  as  nothing  in  the  growth  of  a 
planet  and  the  growths  on  a  planet. 

Re-embodiment  makes  every  animal  trained  by 
man  more  intelligent  and  better  adapted  to  the  use 
he  wishes  to  put  it.  The  spirit  of  the  dog  trained 
to  the  water,  being  given  a  new  body,  retains  the 
skill  and  training  it  received  from  its  master  in  the 
old  one.  If  the  desire  of  the  dog  was  for  fleetness, 
its  body  is  shaped  more  and  more  through  such  desire 
for  swift  running. 

The  process  of  re-embodiment  for  the  animal  is  the 
same  as  that  for  man.  The  spirit  passed  from  one 
body  is  attracted  to  another  organization  in  which  a 
new  body  of  like  character  is  forming,  and  when  that 
body  becomes  a  distinct  organization  from  that  of  the 
parent,  the  animal  spirit  comes  in  possession  of  it,  — 
such  possession  becoming  more  and  more  complete 
as  the  body  grows  to  maturity,  and  lessening  after 
the  maturity  of  the  organization  is  passed. 

The  play  and  sportiveness  of  infancy  and  youth 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


RE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL   IN   NATURE.  3 

are  due  to  the  lightness  and  exhilaration  coming  of 
the  spirit's  having  a  new  body.  It  is  for  the  same 
reason  that  you  feel  better  in  a  new  suit  of  clothes 
than  an  old  one.  The  old  suit  is  filled  with  your  old 
thought,  for  thought  is  a  substance  which  attaches 
itself  to  and  permeates  whatever  is  nearest  he  who 
thinks.  Your  old  suit  is  filled  more  or  less  with  the 
depressed  evil  or  immature  states  of  mind  you  have 
experienced  in  wearing  it.  When  you  put  it  on,  you 
are  putting  on  more  or  less  of  such  low  or  despond- 
ent thought. 

The  animal  passes  from  re-embodiment  to  re-em- 
bodiment, through  periods  compared  to  which  that 
embraced  in  man's  known  history  is  but  a  mere  drop 
in  the  ocean.  At  last  it  reaches  a  point  where  the 
re-embodiment  of  its  own  species  ceases.  Its  spirit 
is  attracted  to  a  finer  and  more  complex  organization. 
It  is  incorporated  with,  and  becomes  a  part  of  it. 
That  spirit  organization  is  man. 

In  ages  far  remote  from  any  known  historical 
record,  man's  savage  instincts  were  but  little  above 
those  of  the  savage  animal.  He  was  in  reality  but 
an  animal,  with  more  skill  and  ingenuity  in  the  art 
of  killing.  His  intellect  had  grown  to  that  extent  as 
to  realize  that  a  stick,  a  stone,  or  a  sharp  point  on  a 
stick  or  stone,  could  be  used  to  let  the  life  out  of 
other  animals.  In  this  state  the  mother  might 
attract  to  her  the  spirit  of  some  more  intelligent  or 
highly  developed  savage  animal.  That  spirit  would 
then  lose  its  identity  as  a  quadruped,  and  re-appear 
in  the  body  of  a  man  or  woman  child.  It  might  not 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


4          EE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL   IN  NATURE. 

be  the  only  spirit  re-embodied  in  the  new  being. 
The  chief  spirit  might  be  that  of  some  man  or 
woman  whose  old  body  had  died. 

The  supposed  fables  in  the  ancient  mythologies 
concerning  beings  half  men,  half  beasts,  —  such  as 
centaurs,  half  man,  half  horse,  or  mermaids, — have 
their  origin  in  these  spiritual  truths.  Our  race  has 
been  so  developed  out  of  the  animal  or  coarser  forms 
of  life.  Countless  ages  ago  all  forms  of  life  were 
coarser  than  now.  As  these  grew  finer,  man  attracted 
and  absorbed  the  spirit  of  the  finer. 

The  spirit  of  an  animal  can  actually  be  re-embodied 
in  a  man  or  woman,  and  its  prominent  characteristics 
will  appear  in  that  man  or  woman.  Remember  that, 
as  to  size  and  shape,  the  spirit  of  a  horse  need  not  be 
like  the  horse  materialized  in  flesh  and  blood.  Spirit 
takes  hold  of  a  mass  of  matter,  and  moulds  that  mat- 
ter in  accordance  with  its  ruling  desire,  and  the 
amount  of  its  intelligence.  An  anaconda  is  but  the 
faint  spark  of  intelligence  only  awakened  into  de- 
sire to  swallow  and  digest.  Such  low  forms  of  life 
as  reptile  or  fish  have  not  even  awakened  into  affec- 
tion for  their  young.  The  reptile,  as  to  spirit  or 
intellect,  is  but  a  remove  from  the  vegetable.  Be- 
cause spirit  belongs  also  to  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
Trees  have  a  life  of  their  own :  they  are  gregarious, 
and  grow  in  communities.  The  spirit  of  the  old 
tree  re-animates  the  new  one.  There  is  in  the  vege- 
table kingdom  the  unconscious  desire  for  refinement, 
for  better  forms  of  life.  For  this  reason  is  the  entire 
vegetable  kingdom  of  a  finer  type  than  ages  ago, 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


RE-EMBODIMENT  UNIVERSAL  IN  NATURE.    5 

when  the  world's  trees  and  plants,  though  immense 
in  size,  were  coarse  in  fibre,  and  in  correspondence 
with  the  animal  life  about  them. 

The  true  evolution,  then,  is  that  of  spirit,  taking  on 
itself  through  successive  ages  many  re-embodiments, 
and  adding  to  itself  some  new  quality  with  each 
re-embodiment. 

The  "  survival  of  the  fittest "  implies  that  the  best 
qualities  so  gathered  do  survive.  The  lower,  coarser, 
and  more  savage  are  gradually  sloughed  off.  The 
best  qualities  in  all  animal  forms  of  life  eventually 
are  gathered  in  man.  He  has  so  gained  or  absorbed 
into  himself  courage  from  the  lion,  cunning  from  the 
fox,  rapaciousness  from  vulture  and  eagle.  You  often 
see  the  eagle  or  vulture  beak  on  one  person's  face, 
the  bull-dog  on  that  of  another,  the  wolf,  the  fox,  and 
so  on.  Faces  hang  out  no  false  signs  of  the  character 
of  the  spirit.  Man,  unconsciously  recognizing  this, 
uses  the  terms  "  foxy,"  "  wolfish,"  "  snaky,"  and  even 
"hoggish,"  in  describing  the  character  of  certain 
individuals. 

No  animal  taken  from  its  wild  or  natural  condition, 
and  trained  by  man  through  successive  generations 
for  man's  use,  is  really  improved  as  an  animal.  It  is 
only  improved  for  man's  use  or  pleasure.  An  animal 
overloaded  with  fat,  such  as  may  be  seen  at  an  agri- 
cultural show,  is  deprived  of  agility  and  strength. 
The  development  of  fat  to  such  an  excess  is  an  in- 
jury to  the  animal.  Man's  domestication  of  fowl  or 
animal  is  artificial ;  it  makes  that  fowl  or  animal  en- 
tirely dependent  on  him  for  its  support;  it  is  then 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


6  HE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL  IN   NATURE. 

unable  to  sustain  itself  as  in  its  wild  or  natural  state. 
The  domesticated  duck  or  goose  is  a  helpless  waddler, 
almost  unable  to  fly :  its  power  of  flight  has  been  lost 
through  generations  of  captivity.  The  bird  or  animal 
has  a  right  to  all  the  powers  nature  has  given  it. 
We  rob  it  of  those  powers  for  the  sake  of  its  flesh,  its 
eggs,  or  such  use  as  we  can  make  of  it. 

The  spirit  of  the  domesticated  animal  is  absorbed 
into  that  of  man.  With  it  he  absorbs  the  spirit  of 
slavery,  of  dependence,  of  helplessness.  He  absorbs 
an  unnatural,  forced,  and  artificial  product  of  spirit. 
This  tinges  his  own  spirit  with  that  of  slavery,  depen- 
dence, and  a  certain  helplessness.  So  the  wrong  he 
does  the  animal  returns  again  to  him. 

Nature  refuses  at  last  to  perpetuate  forced  or  artifi- 
cial conditions  in  any  sort  of  life.  The  higher  or  finer 
the  breeding,  the  greater  the  care  required  to  sustain 
bird,  animal,  or  vegetable,  the  more  liable  are  they 
to  disease.  Our  highly  bred  cattle  must  have  warmer 
housing,  and  food  requiring  more  care  in  its  prepara- 
tion, than  the  so-called  inferior  type.  A  Californian 
mustang,  which  is  a  near  approach  to  the  wild  horse, 
will  sustain  itself  and  do  hard  work  where  the  highly 
bred  animal  would  starve.  Eventually,  a  point  is 
reached  where  artificial  breeding  can  go  no  farther. 
The  artificialized  type  grows  more  and  more  delicate, 
and  requires  more  and  more  care.  If  that  care  be 
removed,  and  the  animal  can  survive,  it  returns  in  a 
few  generations  to  the  original  wild  type,  as  is  seen 
in  the  rabbit ;  which,  if  left  alone,  will  in  three  or 
four  generations  revert  to  gray,  the  color  of  the  wild 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


BE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVEESAL   IN   NATURE.          7 

species,  and  when  it  is  gray  is  a  hardier  animal  than 
when  white  or  "  pied."  Nature,  after  all,  knows  best 
what  to  do  with  her  own.  Man  makes  no  real  im- 
provements on  nature.  Let  the  spirit  alone  to  its 
own  impulses,  let  the  spirit  alone  to  its  own  direction> 
and  it  will  do  all  things  well.  When  we  meddle  with 
it,  we  bungle. 

All  grains,  fruits,  and  vegetables  cultivated  by 
man  are  natural  types  captured  and  enslaved  by  him. 
They  are  bred  to  forced  conditions.  They  are  de- 
pendent on  man's  care.  Remove  that  care  and  they 
cannot  sustain  themselves,  as  do  the  wild  growths, 
or  as  did  the  parents  of  our  present  wheat,  potato> 
apple,  cherry,  or  other  vegetable  in  their  natural 
states.  In  consuming  these  artificial  growths,  man 
absorbs  also  their  spirit  of  dependence,  of  slavery, 
and  unnatural  condition.  All  this  tends  to  cripple 
and  retard  the  growth  of  his  spiritual  powers. 

All  cultivated  vegetable  growths,  like  all  artifi- 
cially raised  animals,  are  more  subject  to  disease  than 
the  same  species  in  their  wild  state.  If  neglected  by 
man,  they  either  disappear  altogether  or  revert  to  the 
original  type. 

You  may  ask  how  could  man  have  lived  without 
the  cultivated  grains,  fruits,  vegetables,  and  animals? 
The  answer  is  that  man  is  not  a  body,  but  a  spirit 
using  that  body  ;  that  had  this  spirit  grown  naturally 
it  would  have  found  other  and  better  means  for  feed- 
ing and  strengthening  the  body  than  those  now  used ; 
that  a  higher  degree  of  spiritual  power  would  have 
gathered,  appropriated,  or  condensed  out  of  the  ele- 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


8          RE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL  IN  NATURE. 

ments  any  food  or  any  flavor  of  food  desired,  as  did 
the  Christ  when  he  fed  the  multitude ;  that  when 
man,  ages  ago  in  his  blindness,  feared  to  trust  in  this 
way  to  spirit,  and  trusted  altogether  in  the  material, 
—  in  flesh  and  grain  for  food  and  in  artificially  reared 
flesh  and  grain  at  that,  —  he  cut  himself  off  from  his 
higher  and  better  life  and  happiness,  the  life  of  his 
spirit. 

The  tree  of  knowledge  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and 
the  ill  effect  of  its  fruit  on  two  persons,  is  not  fable. 
The  garden  was  the  earth  in  its  natural  condition. 
Adam  and  Eve  were  the  ancestors  of  our  present 
white  races.  They  were  brought  to  this  earth  by  a 
superior  power  from  another  planet.  They  possessed 
an  intelligence  superior  to  the  dark  races  then  on  the 
earth.  The  powers  that  brought  them  wished  these 
two  persons  to  depend  on  their  own  spiritual  powers 
for  support.  They  wished  them  to  feed  only  on  the 
wild  fruits  about  them,  so  they  should  absorb  only 
the  natural  and  more  powerful  spirit  of  such  growth. 
They  did  not  wish  them  to  enslave  any  form  of  spirit 
embodied  in  a  material  organization,  and  corrupt  that 
spirit  through  any  forced  and  artificial  process.  The 
tree  of  knowledge  implied  that  there  were  ways  and 
means  for  bringing  about  these  artificial  growths 
which  it  was  not  well  for  them  to  know.  The  su- 
perior wisdom  wished  them  to  learn  their  spiritual 
powers,  as  they  do  us.  These  would  have  done  for 
them  far  more  than  the  material,  as  they  can  for  us. 
The  spirit's  faculties,  when  cultivated,  can  enable 
people  to  leave  their  bodies,  traverse  vast  spaces,  and 

Thoughts  are  Things. 


RE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL   IN   NATURE.          9 

visit  other  continents,  and  even  planets.  It  can 
make  man  entirely  independent  of  the  present  cum- 
brous devices  for  locomotion.  There  would  be  no 
need  for  bringing  any  merchandise  or  product  of  one 
land  to  another  when  a  few  seconds  could  carry  our 
spiritual  body  to  those  lands.  Spiritual  power  would 
make  all  and  any  food  desired  out  of  the  elements, 
at  will.  This  would  render  unnecessary  cultivation 
of  the  soil,  and  all  forced  and  artificial  growths  of 
animal  or  vegetable. 

Adam  and  Eve  failed  to  trust  in  this  power.  The 
knowledge  forbidden  them  was  the  knowledge  for 
sustaining  the  life  of  their  bodies  through  these 
forced  and  artificial  states  of  animals  and  vegetables, 

—  through    captivity    of    natural    organizations,  — 
through  an  unnatural  development  in  such  captivity, 

—  through  a  making  of  the  animal  what  nature  did 
not  intend  it  should  be,  as   well   as   the   plant, — 
through  killing  and  slaying,  and  renewing   of  the 
human  body's  life   by  the  unnatural  life   or  spirit 
from  another  body- 

"  If  ye  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge," 
said  to  them  the  Higher  Power,  "  ye  shall  surely  die." 
They  did  eat  or  absorb  the  thought  of  this  knowledge 
from  some  source,  possibly  from  the  lower  races 
about  them.  They  captured  the  wild  animal,  and 
made  it,  through  artificial  rearing,  a  creature  nature 
did  not  intend  it  should  be.  They  did  the  same  by 
the  plant.  Then  came  the  slaying  of  these  animals, 
and  the  feeding  of  their  own  bodies  with  their  blood. 
Twice  is  it  repeated  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  Genesis, 


Thoughts  are  Things. 


10       BE-EMBODIMENT   UNIVERSAL  IN  NATURE. 

"Ye  shall  not  partake  of  the  life  which  is  in  the 
blood." 

In  Eden  the  animals  did  not  fear  man ;  there  was 
no  need  for  their  domestication.  Even  to-day  wild 
creatures  in  their  natural  state  can  be  wooed  by  per- 
sistent kindness  to  thorough  tameness. 

But  with  captivity  and  killing  and  hunting,  the 
bird  and  animal  learned  to  fear  man ;  Eden  was  over. 
The  fear  implanted  in  the  animal  is  through  eating 
of  its  blood,  again  transferred  to  man.  So  is  every 
other  unnatural  or  distorted  quality,  coming  of  arti- 
ficial or  unnatural  growth.  We  absorb  of  the  help- 
lessness of  plant  or  animal  entirely  dependent  on 
man's  care. 

Adam  and  Eve  failed  because  of  their  inability  to 
comprehend  and  trust  to  spiritual  law ;  they  would 
trust  only  to  the  material.  The  material  is  tempo- 
rary ;  the  spiritual  is  permanent.  What  we  see,  be 
it  tree,  animal,  or  any  form  of  matter,  is  really  held 
together  by  spirit.  We  should  call  the  attraction  of 
cohesion,  the  power  of  spirit  to  hold  all  matter  to- 
gether. To  trust  in  material  things  and  material  law, 
as  it  is  mistakenly  called,  is  to  trust  to  the  engine 
that  draws  the  railway  train,  instead  of  the  engineer 
who  runs  it.  The  engine  represents  the  material; 
the  engineer,  the  moving  and  controlling  spirit. 


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